Cmdlet Sets

When you design your cmdlets, you might encounter cases in which you need to perform several actions on the same piece of data. For example, you might need to get and set data or start and stop a process. Although you will need to create separate cmdlets to perform each action, your cmdlet design should include a base class from which the classes for the individual cmdlets are derived.

Keep the following things in mind when implementing a base class.

• Declare any common parameters used by all the derived cmdlets in the base class.

• Add cmdlet-specific parameters to the appropriate cmdlet class.

• Override the appropriate input processing method in the base class.

• Declare the System.Management.Automation.CmdletAttribute attribute on all cmdlet classes, but do not declare it on the base class.

• Implement a System.Management.Automation.PSSnapIn or System.Management.Automation.Custompssnapin class whose name and description reflects the set of cmdlets.

Example

The following example shows the implementation of a base class that is used by Get-Proc and Stop-Proc cmdlet that derive from the same base class.

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Management.Automation;             //Windows PowerShell namespace.

namespace Microsoft.Samples.PowerShell.Commands
{

  #region ProcessCommands

  /// <summary>
  /// This class implements a Stop-Proc cmdlet. The parameters
  /// for this cmdlet are defined by the BaseProcCommand class.
  /// </summary>
  [Cmdlet(VerbsLifecycle.Stop, "Proc", SupportsShouldProcess = true)]
  public class StopProcCommand : BaseProcCommand
  {
    public override void ProcessObject(Process process)
    {
      if (ShouldProcess(process.ProcessName, "Stop-Proc"))
      {
        process.Kill();
      }
    }
  }

  /// <summary>
  /// This class implements a Get-Proc cmdlet. The parameters
  /// for this cmdlet are defined by the BaseProcCommand class.
  /// </summary>

  [Cmdlet(VerbsCommon.Get, "Proc")]
  public class GetProcCommand : BaseProcCommand
  {
    public override void ProcessObject(Process process)
    {
      WriteObject(process);
    }
  }

  /// <summary>
  /// This class is the base class that defines the common
  /// functionality used by the Get-Proc and Stop-Proc
  /// cmdlets.
  /// </summary>
  public class BaseProcCommand : Cmdlet
  {
    #region Parameters

    // Defines the Name parameter that is used to
    // specify a process by its name.
    [Parameter(
               Position = 0,
               Mandatory = true,
               ValueFromPipeline = true,
               ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName = true
    )]
    public string[] Name
    {
      get { return processNames; }
      set { processNames = value; }
    }
    private string[] processNames;

    // Defines the Exclude parameter that is used to
    // specify which processes should be excluded when
    // the cmdlet performs its action.
    [Parameter()]
    public string[] Exclude
    {
      get { return excludeNames; }
      set { excludeNames = value; }
    }
    private string[] excludeNames = new string[0];
    #endregion Parameters

    public virtual void ProcessObject(Process process)
    {
      throw new NotImplementedException("This method should be overridden.");
    }

    #region Cmdlet Overrides
    // <summary>
    // For each of the requested process names, retrieve and write
    // the associated processes.
    // </summary>
    protected override void ProcessRecord()
    {
      // Set up the wildcard characters used in resolving
      // the process names.
      WildcardOptions options = WildcardOptions.IgnoreCase |
                                WildcardOptions.Compiled;

      WildcardPattern[] include = new WildcardPattern[Name.Length];
      for (int i = 0; i < Name.Length; i++)
      {
        include[i] = new WildcardPattern(Name[i], options);
      }

      WildcardPattern[] exclude = new WildcardPattern[Exclude.Length];
      for (int i = 0; i < Exclude.Length; i++)
      {
        exclude[i] = new WildcardPattern(Exclude[i], options);
      }

      foreach (Process p in Process.GetProcesses())
      {
        foreach (WildcardPattern wIn in include)
        {
          if (wIn.IsMatch(p.ProcessName))
          {
            bool processThisOne = true;
            foreach (WildcardPattern wOut in exclude)
            {
              if (wOut.IsMatch(p.ProcessName))
              {
                processThisOne = false;
                break;
              }
            }
            if (processThisOne)
            {
              ProcessObject(p);
            }
            break;
          }
        }
      }
    }
    #endregion Cmdlet Overrides
  }
    #endregion ProcessCommands
}

See Also

Writing a Windows PowerShell Cmdlet