How can I get Powershell TabExpansion to print all the possible completions?

Question

The default TabExpansion in Powershell cycles through the possible completions for the fragment on the command prompt. Internally in the PowerShell host, there's a circular buffer, and the first TAB fills the buffer and puts the first potential completion on the prompt. Subsequent TABs cycle through the list of possible completions.

How can I modify TabExpansion to just display the set of possible completions when I hit ?

Also, can I invoke the TabExpansion function explicitly from the command prompt, and if so, how?

(If you don't know what I mean by "modify TabExpansion", see this link.)

Answer 1

see here. http://www.leeholmes.com/blog/AddingDoubleTapTabCompletionToPowerShell.aspx

Answer 2

Check out PowerTab. It's pretty cool.

Answer 3

You can modify it directly at the prompt --or in your profile script-- it's just a function, so you could type this at a prompt to alter it to print all answers:

Copy Function:\TabExpansion Function:\OriginalTabExpansion
function TabExpansion([string] $line, [string] $lastword) { 
   OriginalTabExpansion $line $lastword | Out-Host
   $line
}

Or you can go a little further and format it wide:

Copy Function:\TabExpansion Function:\OriginalTabExpansion
function TabExpansion([string] $line, [string] $lastword) { 
   Write-Host # an emtpy newline to avoid outputting on the prompt line
   # A hack, because Format-Wide doesn't work on strings 
   $obj = new-object psobject | add-member noteproperty value "" -Passthru
   OriginalTabExpansion $line $lastword | ForEach { $obj.value = $_; $obj } | 
      Format-Wide -auto value | Out-Host
   ## Maybe even re-output your prompt function... depending on how it's written
   Write-Host $(prompt) -NoNewLine
   return $line # keep the command as it was
}

PS: Vote for the bug on Format-Wide

Answer 4

This one-liner seems to work around the problem with format-wide and an array of strings:

$ComputerList | Select-Object -Property @{Expression={[Object[]] $_};Name="Name"} | Format-Wide -Property Name -Column 5

The array of strings in this case is $ComputerList defined like this:

[array] $ComputerList = @("WINSRV2003-32B","WINSRV2003-64B")