As a Consultant

This is part 2 of the REST API blogpost. In part1 we successfully setup two REST API endpoints using the UniversalDashboard PowerShell module. In this part we are going to create a simple module that support some CRUD operation against our API. As we are trying to keep things as simple as possible, we will not use any fancy framework (like Plaster) to build our module. We are also going to skip a very important step you should familiarize yourself with, Pester tests. Lets get to it. The module We will build a module called FilesAPI. The module folder will look like this: In the functions folder I have already added the 2 helper functions from part 1, Get-AuthorizationHeader and ConvertTo-Base64 . The other folders are just placeholders for important stuff like classes, private functions that you do not want to make available for the module consumer and tests for Pester tests. For such a small module that we are going to create, one could argue that it is much easier to just ...

Over the years I have developed different PowerShell modules for different web APIs. I thought it would be a good idea to write a 2 series post about how you could go about to do this. This will be a 2 part blog series where we will run through the entire process of building a module for a REST API. I will try my best to keep this as simple as possible and leave more advanced stuff for a follow up post if the interest is there. What you need Depending on your experience with source control and PowerShell in general, you might want to use GIT or some other software repro for the code. In addition we are going to create a test REST API using the splendid UniversalDashboard PowerShell module created by Adam Driscoll. It is available on the PowershellGallery. Other prerequisites are built-in to Powershell. I will assume that you will be following along using at least PowerShell version 5 or greater. What is HTTP metods for REST API. The primary or most common HTTP verbs used are P...

Currently I am working on a big new module. In this module, I need to persist data to disk and reprocess them at some point even if the module/PowerShell session was closed. I needed to serialize objects and save them to disk. It needed to be very efficient to be able to support a high volume of objects. Hence I decided to turn this serializer into a module called HashData. Other Serializing methods In PowerShell we have several possibilities to serialize objects. There are two cmdlets you can use which are built in: Export-CliXml ConvertTo-JSON Both are excellent options if you do not care about the size of the file. In my case I needed something lean and mean in terms of the size on disk for the serialized object. Lets do some tests to compare the different types: (Hashdata.Object.ps1) You might be curious why I do not use the Export-CliXML cmdlet and just use the [System.Management.Automation.PSSerializer]::Serialize static method. The static method will generate t...

From time to time I find myself needing a notification tool. Normally a simple show messagebox will suffice, however the trouble with that is that is blocking until someone clicks that OK button. I have seen workarounds that uses wscript and other things, however that is just meh. There is a function in my general purpose repro on BitBucket that is called Show-Message . Here is the function: The “good” thing about this is that it also works on Windows Server 2016 with the GUI experience, however who is using a GUI on a server nowadays? Everybody should be using Nano or Server Core, right? In addition the function will fallback to a regular good old MessageBox if the Windows.UI.Notification namespace is not available. Please note that in those scenarios, the function will block execution until the OK button is clicked. Here is how a notification looks like: You can also control for how long the notification should be shown to the user with the DisplayDuration parameter....

I needed a project for my Xmas holiday and I needed something remotely work related. Thus the dubious PoshARM PowerShell module was born and brought to life during my Xmas holiday. Simply put it is a module that lets you build – for now – simple Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates with PowerShell .  The module can also import templates from a file or from the clipboard/string. Your partial template or ready made template can be exported as a PowerShell script. This blog post will walk you through how to use it and the features that is currently implemented.  Update 08.02.2017: The module is now published to the PowerShellGallery ( https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/posharm ). It is still in beta version, however test coverage have increased and some bugs have been squashed during the testing. Also help is present, however somewhat lacking here and there. Update 18.01.2017: The module is now on GitHub. Here is the link to the repro  ( PoshARM on GitH...

PowerShell is getting increasing attention and gaining followers each day. That is a good thing in my book. I saw a tweet about Citrix OctoBlu automation where Dave Brett ( @dbretty ) was using it to save money with a PowerShell script ( full post here ) to power on and off VMs. I reached out to him and asked if he would like a little help with his PowerShell script. To my delight, he happily accepted and this post is about how I transformed his scripts to take advantage of the full power of The Shell. Fair warning is in order, since I have never used or touched a OctoBlu solution. Starting scripts ( shutdownScript.ps1 ) ( StartupScript.ps1 ) What we would like to change First of, a PowerShell function should do one thing and do it well. My first goal was to split the function into two parts where we have one function that handles both the startup and the shutdown of the VM-guests. Secondly I would like to move the mail notification out of the function and ...

This post is about making lookups in arrays as fast as possible. The array can have may properties or few, it really does not matter. The only thing required is something unique that identifies each row of data. So from time to time I find the need to make lookups fast. Usually it is a result of importing a huge csv file or something. Sample data First we have to create some dummy sample data which we can run some tests against. We will create an array of 10001 objects with a few properties. The unique property that identifies each row is called ID: (sample data script) How to test performance? There are a couple of items that impact performance in Powershell. For instance running a Measure-Command expression will yield quite different results. Normally the first run is slower than the second one and then the standard deviation is quite large for consequent runs. To decreate the standard deviation, I use a static call to the .net GarbageCollector with [...