Running and debugging PowerShell Core scripts on macOS and Linux
PowerShell is Microsoft scripting language. Only present on Windows in the past, it is now open-source and available on Linux and macOS thanks to .Net Core.
In this article I’ll show you how to install PowerShell Core and use Visual Studio Code to edit, run and debug .ps1 scripts.
Installing PowerShell Core
There are two ways to get PowerShell up and running. You can either install it directly on your machine or execute it in a docker container.
Docker
For the docker setup, simply run:
docker run -it microsoft/powershellmacOS
To install and run PowerShell on macOS, execute the following commands in your terminal:
#Install PowerShell
brew cask install powershell#Start PowerShell
pwsh
Linux
PowerShell Core supports multiple Linux distributions (even Raspbian!). You can either download the package that matches yours directly on the PowerShell GitHub repository or install it using the command prompt (see the Microsoft documentation for more details about your distribution).
If you have issues installing it check out the PoweShell GitHub repository for more details about prerequisites.
Create, run and debug scripts using VS Code
Setting up Visual Studio Code
What would PowerShell be without a proper IDE to write, execute and debug scripts?
Fortunately there is a VS Code extension that does just that! You can either find it online or directly in the VS Code Extensions Marketplace
Once installed let’s write our script!
Script creation
First create a new folder and open it with VS Code. (Do not simply create a new file. An open folder is required in order to have access to the debug tools). Then create a new file with the “.ps1” extension.
Here is the script content:
It simply outputs “Hello, World!” in a txt file, reads that file and replaces a part of the initial text. It prompts the new text in the terminal and write it back in the file.
Debug configuration
To debug our script we will first need to create a new debug configuration. To do so go to the debug panel of Visual Studio Code and select “Add Configuration…”
This will create a launch.json file that will tell VS Code how to execute our script when we press Start.
Script execution
Back to our script, let’s add a few breakpoints and start the debug session.
Visual Studio Code will start executing our script and will stop — as expected — at each of the defined breakpoints. You can see that it also provides a complete set of debugging tools as well as a PowerShell command prompt at the bottom.
Conclusion
Thanks to .Net Core we are able to get PowerShell up and running on macOS and Linux. These platforms being quite different from Windows, you probably won’t have a lot of scripts to re-use if you were mainly managing Windows servers. What’s the benefit you might ask then? Modules!
One of PowerShell strengths is its ability to add extra features thanks to additional modules. For instance, you can add a module to remotely manage your Azure environment.
The open-source community is also working on modules to extend the language. For more details about these you can have a look at the following resource: https://github.com/janikvonrotz/awesome-powershell
Do you have any additional tips? Remarks? Feedback? Do not hesitate to share your thoughts!
