PowerShell / PowerShell ISE - How to enter a tab indentation in the command window?

Question

In PowerShell at the command line, how do I enter a tab indentation for multiple line commands?

Obviously, [tab] or [shift] + [tab] does not work, otherwise I would not ask this question.

If you only indent by 1, then SPACE is not much different than TAB. If this much script is needed, why not start a new script in the editor window? — lit, Apr 18 '18 at 17:42
Also, indentation does not count in PowerShell as it does in Python. — lit, Apr 18 '18 at 17:42
Agreed; the CLI is not a script-writing interface. Use the correct tool for the job. — Bill_Stewart, Apr 18 '18 at 19:46

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 18 '18 at 20:03

Using PSReadline (built-in to PS 5.1 or available via Install-Module) you can make a custom key handler:

Set-PSReadlineKeyHandler -Chord 'ctrl+tab' -ScriptBlock {
    $text = ''
    $cursor = 0
    [Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::GetBufferState([ref]$text, [ref]$cursor)
    $lastNewLine = [math]::max(0, $text.LastIndexOf("`n", $cursor - 1))
    [Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::Replace([math]::min($cursor, $lastNewLine + 1), 0, "    ")
}

Then Ctrl+Tab will indent the line which the cursor is on, no matter where in the line the cursor is.

Extending this to multiple lines, when you can't really select multiple lines in the console, is left as an exercise for the reader.

PowerShell / PowerShell ISE - How to enter a tab indentation in the command window?

1 Answers1