PowerShell / PowerShell/PSScriptAnalyzer
Invoke-Formatter is not idempotent on `--%` verbatim arguments
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- C#
- Stars
- 2.2k
- Forks
- 414
- Avg merge
- 13h 1m
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 2
Description
Steps to reproduce
Run the formatter repeatedly on a native command that uses the stop-parsing token:
$formatted = $null
1..3 | ForEach-Object {
$formatted = Invoke-Formatter ($formatted ?? 'cmd --% raw | text & stuff')
$formatted
}
Expected behavior
Formatting already formatted output should be a no-op. Spacing adjacent to the verbatim argument should either be left untouched or normalized once to a stable result.
Actual behavior
One additional space is inserted before | on every run:
cmd --% raw | text & stuff
cmd --% raw | text & stuff
cmd --% raw | text & stuff
The output grows without bound in a format-on-save loop.
The verbatim-argument token owns the text up to the pipe. PSUseConsistentWhitespace with CheckPipe sees a zero-width gap before | and inserts a space inside the verbatim argument's extent on each formatting pass.
Environment data
Reproduced with:
- PSScriptAnalyzer 1.25.0 on PowerShell 7.5.2
- PSScriptAnalyzer 1.25.0 on PowerShell 7.6.3
- PSScriptAnalyzer built from
mainat PowerShell/PSScriptAnalyzer@4b0117ca7d2887711c9699f467ba7171f8859156 on PowerShell 7.6.4
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 reproducing the repeated Invoke-Formatter example with a native command using the --% stop-parsing token. Inspect PSUseConsistentWhitespace's CheckPipe handling around the verbatim-argument extent; done means repeated formatting leaves spacing stable instead of inserting another space before |.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- powershell
- Domain
- tooling
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Active
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 55/100