Is there a command/program/Cmdlet that writes to the prompt buffer?

Question

I'm trying to see if I can write the output of a command to the prompt buffer to allow for further editing? Something like this, where Write-PromptBuffer is the command desired:

PS C:\> echo "foo bar" | Write-PromptBuffer
PS C:\> foo bar

Something equivalent to what zsh does with print -z (see http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/zshguide03.html)

My main motivation for this is something along the lines of:

PS C:\> Get-Content (Get-PSReadLineOption).HistorySavePath | fzf

Which would "dump" the selected (accepted in fzf lingo) entry as an editable command in the prompt.

(Note: I'm familiar with PSFzf, but I'm trying to find a general purpose command to do this as I have other use cases that would benefit from this)

That "works" for the specified use-case... even if ctrl-r doesn't do fuzzy match, or show you a list of "currently matching". It does, however, allow you to ctrl-e on the match to be dropped into the prompt with the matched string. I'm looking for something more generic to allow me to do this for not just history look-ups. — Daniel
– Daniel, Commented Jan 10, 2020 at 21:34
There's a lot you can do with psreadline key bindings: PSReadlineKeyHandler -bound Plus there's windows, emacs, and vi mode. — js2010
– js2010, Commented Jan 10, 2020 at 21:44

jfrmilner · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-13 22:50:25Z

1

The PSReadLine module can insert into the buffer, for example

[Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::Insert("foo bar")

However, as this is intended to edit the current line buffer and not the following line you will need so do something like this

#pipeline to variable $myBuffer function
function Write-PromptBuffer {
    param (  
        [parameter(ValueFromPipeline, ValueFromRemainingArguments = $true)]
        $global:myBuffer
        )
}
#Add a PSReadLineKeyHandler to insert $myBuffer
Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler -Key Alt+x `
    -ScriptBlock {
    param($key, $arg)   # The arguments are ignored in this example
    #write to buffer
    [Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::Insert($myBuffer)
}

Now populate $myBuffer with a string and call it with Alt+w

PS C:\> echo "foo bar" | Write-PromptBuffer
PS C:\> foo bar

Alternatively and not pretty, you could use SendKeys

function Write-PromptBuffer {
    param (  
        [parameter(ValueFromPipeline, ValueFromRemainingArguments = $true)]
        $myBuffer
        )
    (new-object -com wscript.shell).SendKeys($myBuffer)
}

Hope this helps,

answered Jan 13, 2020 at 22:50

jfrmilner

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2 Comments

Daniel Over a year ago

Curious why you say that the SendKeys method is "not pretty". Is there something "morally" wrong about it?

jfrmilner Over a year ago

Its difficult to implement safely and often problematic. Keypresses are global so a few Alt+F4's and you'll be shutting down Windows or forget its running a long SendKeys and flip to another application and it'll continue sending. However, for short controlled bursts it might just do what you need.

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