PowerShell
Rule request: Prefix parameters with an unambiguous (ASCII) hyphen-minus
Hyphen-minus characters are sometimes unintendedly replaced when passed by word processors as Microsoft Office applications as MSWord and Outlook. It is recommended to prefix parameters with an unambiguous hyphen-minus as Unicode dashes might cause parsing errors in earlier versions of PowerShell. Besides it unnecessary triggers the UseBOMForUnicodeEncodedFile rule with no clear indication of the location.
PowerShell 7
# .\Test.ps1
Write-Host “test” –ForegroundColor ‘Red’ -BackgroundColor ‘Green’
Invoke-ScriptAnalyzer .\Test.ps1
RuleName Severity ScriptName Line Message
-------- -------- ---------- ---- -------
PSAvoidUsingWriteHost Warning Test.ps1 1 File 'Test.ps1' uses Write-Host. Avoid using
Write-Host because it might not work in all hosts,
does not work when there is no host, and (prior to
PS 5.0) cannot be suppressed, captured, or
redirected. Instead, use Write-Output,
Write-Verbose, or Write-Information.
PSUseBOMForUnicodeEncodedFile Warning Test.ps1 Missing BOM encoding for non-ASCII encoded file
'Test.ps1'
Windows PowerShell (5.1)
Windows PowerShell (5.1) still has issue with EM-dashes:
.\test.ps1
At C:\Users\Gebruiker\downloads\Test.ps1:1 char:25
+ ... “test†–ForegroundColor ‘Red’ -BackgroundColor ‘Green’
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The string is missing the terminator: ".
+ CategoryInfo : ParserError: (:) [], ParseException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : TerminatorExpectedAtEndOfString
Invoke-ScriptAnalyzer .\Test.ps1
RuleName Severity ScriptName Line Message
-------- -------- ---------- ---- -------
TerminatorExpectedAtEndOfString ParseError Test.ps1 1 The string is missing the terminator: ".
PSAvoidUsingWriteHost Warning Test.ps1 1 File 'Test.ps1' uses Write-Host. Avoid using
Write-Host because it might not work in all hosts,
does not work when there is no host, and (prior to
PS 5.0) cannot be suppressed, captured, or
redirected. Instead, use Write-Output,
Write-Verbose, or Write-Information.
PSUseBOMForUnicodeEncodedFile Warning Test.ps1 Missing BOM encoding for non-ASCII encoded file
'Test.ps1'
Proposed technical implementation details (optional)
See (PowerShell based) prototype UseHyphenMinusForParameter at: https://github.com/iRon7/PSRules
What is the latest version of PSScriptAnalyzer at the point of writing
1.21.0
Thanks for all the requests @iRon7 , just a reminder that you can create and publish custom rules on the Gallery-- if you want to get these out there-- its unlikely that we would be able to incorporate them into the product, especially in a timely matter
@SydneyhSmith,
just a reminder that you can create and publish custom rules on the Gallery
Yes, I am currently building a set of additional rules for our environment and also considering to publish them at the gallery. The point is that I am looking into a way to get them automatically installed as a part of the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF), see also: https://github.com/PowerShell/PSScriptAnalyzer/issues/1551#issuecomment-1698761945