CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershell
Aaron Thomas
Aaron Thomas

Reputation: 5281

Use powershell tabexpansion function

When I run the statement man tabexpansion it shows that I simply need to provide -line and -lastword.

However, when I run a statement like this:

tabexpansion -line "c:/win" -lastword "c:/win"

It returns nothing.

Shouldn't it show at least C:\Windows? What am I doing wrong?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 672

Answers (1)

Χpẘ
Χpẘ

Reputation: 3451

tabexpansion is a function involved in doing tab handling during manual command entry. It performs completion of various types of objects, like path names, variable names, function/cmdlet names, etc. The interface to this function is discussed at this SO post. The booked referenced describes overriding TabExpansion2.

I read elsewhere that TabExpansion is used in PS 2.0, whereas TabExpansion2 is used in 3.0.

As to why TabExpansion doesn't return anything, I can only answer for my system (which has PS 3.0). On my system cat function:tabexpansion gives:

[CmdletBinding()]
param(
    [String] $line,
    [String] $lastWord
)
process {
    if ($line -eq "Install-Module $lastword" -or $line -eq "inmo $lastword" 
        -or $line -eq "ismo $lastword" -or $line -eq "upmo $lastword" 
        -or $line -eq "Update-Module $lastword") {
        Get-PsGetModuleInfo -ModuleName "$lastword*" | % { $_.Id } | sort -Unique
    }
    elseif ( Test-Path -Path Function:\$tabExpansionBackup ) {
        & $tabExpansionBackup $line $lastWord
    }
}

Unless $line begins with a few specific tokens it goes to the elseif statement. There if the variable $tabexpansionBackup is not defined, the function is exited with no output. With the input in the OP, it gives the output you're seeing - none.

Upvotes: 1

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