PowerShell / PowerShell/PSScriptAnalyzer
Formatting misses certain keywords (unary operators, 'until')
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- Dominant language
- C#
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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
- Paste the following into a script
- 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
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 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