Special Variables

Synopsis

Describes the special variables available in PSFramework TabCompletion.

Description

When writing custom tab completion scriptblocks, you have access to five variables that relate to the current command you are trying to complete for:

fakeBoundParameter

The $fakeBoundParameter variable allows you to access the values of what was already bound to the command. Similar to the automatic $PSBoundParameters automatic variable within functions.

Register-PSFTeppScriptblock -Name Alcohol.MugSize -ScriptBlock {
    switch ($fakeBoundParameter.Type)
    {
        'Mead' { 'Mug', 'Horn', 'Barrel' }
        'Wine' { 'Glas', 'Bottle' }
        'Beer' { 'Halbes Maß', 'Maß' }
        default { 'Glas', 'Pitcher' }
    }
}

wordToComplete

The $wordToComplete variable contains what the user already typed before hitting the TAB key. Generally, you do not need to use it, because the system will automatically filter for this!

However you can use this to prefilter remote queries, in order to optimize performance.

Register-PSFTeppScriptBlock -Name MyModule.ComputerName -ScriptBlock {
    (Get-ADComputer -Filter "name -eq '$wordToComplete*'").Name | Sort-Object
}

commandName

The $commandName variable contains the name of the command the user was trying to complete a parametervalue for. For example, if the scriptblock was assigned to the Invoke-Command command’s -ComputerName parameter, it would contain the value "Invoke-Command" when completing for that command.

This allows you to control behavior by command, in case you assign the same tabcompletion scriptblock to multiple commands.

Register-PSFTeppScriptBlock -Name MyModule.ComputerName -ScriptBlock {
    if ($commandName -like "*-Client*") { 
        (Get-ADComputer -Filter "name -eq '$wordToComplete*'" -SearchBase "OU=Clients,DC=Domain,DC=Com").Name | Sort-Object
    }
    else { (Get-ADComputer -Filter "name -eq '$wordToComplete*'").Name | Sort-Object }
}

parameterName

Similar to $commandName, $parameterName contains the name of the actual parameter you are trying to complete for. Using the previous example of Invoke-Command -ComputerName <TAB>, this variable would contain the value of "ComputerName".

Again, this can be used to control behavior by that property, but in practice it has seen little use.

commandAst

The $commandAst variable contains the full PowerShell Ast of the entire pipeline. This would allow access to previous or upcoming commands.

For example, this could be used to check the output type of the preceding command in order to customize tab completion based on what the command will likely receive.

Notes

Back to Tab Expansion

Version	1.0
Written on:	2018-06-18
Updated on:	2018-06-21