This is one of those tasks I need to repeat every now and then and always forget the exact steps. So in the interest of sharing, I’ve written this post to demonstrate how to get started building a very simple module and cmdlet with C# and Visual Studio.
If you’d rather watch, this screencast will show you the steps I followed
http://vimeo.com/10007373
Create a new Visual Studio Class Library Project project.
In this case, I named the library “DemoPS”.
Now, we will add two references. The first to System.Management and the second to System.Management.Automation
System.Management is found under the .NET tab
System.Management.Automation is found under c:\program files\reference assemblies\microsoft\WindowsPowershell\v1.0
And now the references are available in Solution Explorer
If you are using Visual Studio 2010 the assembly will be built using .NET 4.0, but you’ll need to switch it to use the older framework so that Powershell can load the assembly.
Edit the properties of the DemoPS project and set the Target Framework to “.NET Framework 3.5”
Now let’s the examine the code …
Build the cmdlet and launch Powershell 2.0
Import the module with Import-Module
The Get-Modules cmdlet will show you that the module is loaded and it has a single cmdlet inside it called “Get-DemoNames”
the “-?” parameter is already provided for the cmdlet
Now try the cmdlet …
And, of course, it behaves just like any other cmdlet. So you can do things like pipe its output …