PowerShell / PowerShell/PSScriptAnalyzer

Formatting misses certain keywords (unary operators, 'until')

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Area - Formatter Issue - Enhancement Up for Grabs
Dominant language
C#
Stars
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Forks
414
Avg merge
13h 1m
Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

I found that during formatting, some keywords aren't separated from leading braces (while), and some are seemingly ignored entirely (until). Also, unary operators (-not, -bnot, etc.) aren't separated with whitespace the same way as binary operators (-eq, -like, etc.).

Steps to reproduce

  1. Paste the following into a script
  2. Use Invoke-Formatter or the PowerShell VSCode extension to format the document
if(-not$false) {
    do{
        "Hello!"
    }until(
        $True
    )
    do{
        "Oh, hi!"
    }while(
        -not$True
    )
    while(-not$True) {
        "This won't show up."
    }
}

Expected behavior

Roughly the following output. Some is dependent on brace style (OTBS in this case), but all rules for inserting whitespace around keywords and operators should be enabled.

if (-not $false) {
    do {
        'Hello!'
    } until (
        $True
    )
    do {
        'Oh, hi!'
    } while (
        -not $True
    )
    while (-not $True) {
        "This won't show up."
    }
}

Actual behavior

if (-not$false) { # -not isn't separated by whitespace
    do {
        'Hello!'
    }until( # no whitespace around Until
        $True
    )
    do {
        'Oh, hi!'
    }while ( # only trailing whitespace for While
        -not$True # no separation
    )
    while (-not$True) { # no separation for -not and -bnot
        "This won't show up."
    }
}

Environment data

> $PSVersionTable
Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      5.1.19041.5737
PSEdition                      Desktop
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
BuildVersion                   10.0.19041.5737
CLRVersion                     4.0.30319.42000
WSManStackVersion              3.0
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1

> (Get-Module -ListAvailable PSScriptAnalyzer).Version | ForEach-Object { $_.ToString() }
1.23.0

1.23.0 is the version included with the current (2025.0.0) VSCode PowerShell extension. I've also installed and tested 1.24.0 with the same results.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by running the supplied reproducer through Invoke-Formatter and compare the result with the expected output. Trace the formatter's handling of keyword spacing for while and until, then unary operators such as -not and -bnot. Done means the formatted output separates these keywords and operators as shown for the reported cases.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
csharp, powershell
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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