PowerShell / PowerShell/PSScriptAnalyzer
Add ability to determine when script uses language features and/or cmdlets not available in the specified minimum version of PowerShell
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- Dominant language
- C#
- Stars
- 2.2k
- Forks
- 414
- Avg merge
- 13h 1m
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 2
Description
This is increasingly becoming an issue as PowerShell gets new language features and cmdlets. And cmdlets get new parameters, etc. I could have a #requires -version 3.0 in my script but I'm developing on PowerShell 5.0. It is real easy to slip up and use a lang feature ("using namespace System.Diagnostics") or a cmdlet (New-TemporaryFile) or a new cmdlet parameter (PassThru added to Enable-JobTrigger in v4). It would be great if ScriptAnalyzer saw a #requires -Version X.0 and warned (or errored) when I used a feature not available on X.0. Likewise, I would like to have a parameter to ScriptAnalyzer where I could tell it the minimum version I want to target (perhaps I have several scripts written at different times that have varying levels of #requires -Version).
For bonus points, if someone specified neither the command line parameter (MinimumPowerShellVersion) or had any #requires or min version in their PSD1 file, it would be nice if ScriptAnalyzer told me that - "Scripts require at least version 4 due use of -PassThru parameter on Enable-JobTrigger and use of Get-FileHash cmdlet).
Where things get a bit more tricky is setting a minimum Windows OS version. But the need is there since I have a whole bunch of cmdlets available to me on Windows 8.1 that I know are not available on Windows 7.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reviewing the ScriptAnalyzer entry point and how it currently handles #requires declarations, cmdlet usage, language features, and parameters. Compare the requested minimum-version sources—command-line input, #requires, and PSD1 metadata—and define how warnings should identify unsupported features, including the Windows-version case. Done means the scope and compatibility rules are specified well enough to add targeted analyzer tests.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- powershell
- Domain
- operating-systems, tooling
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100