I was assigning the output of Git to a variable in a Windows PowerShell script and it looked as if I was losing the carriage returns and line feeds in the output. What is actually happening is the output of the executable is being broken out into an array of strings.

The following shows an example PowerShell session with an explanation following.

1. Running the git program returns output that is delimited by line breaks.
2. Assign the output of the program to a variable.
3. Write-Host the variable and the line breaks are gone >:-{
4. You can see the variable is actually an array!
5. You can create a string using the .NET String.Join function.
6. Now Write-Host of the variable has the line breaks.

I created a short screen cast to explain this as well.

I hope this helps. Code on!

Hmm… I want to show the current branch and status of my Git repository on my Windows PowerShell prompt. I found a post on Stack Overflow that gives a good example of showing Git repo status on a PowerShell prompt, but I customized it a bit to show data I want to see.

Git status on my PowerShell prompt when the index and working directory are clean:

When there are differences in the Git index or in the working folder then the prompt will look like the following:

The meaning of the status is documented on the git-status man page for the --s, –short, or --porcelain argument. I’m using git status –porcelain, as it not supposed to change in the future. Please note that I replace the space in the status with a dash.

The script for the profile.ps1 file follows:

$Global:CurrentUser = [System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()
$UserType = "User"
$CurrentUser.Groups | foreach {
      if ($_.value -eq "S-1-5-32-544")
      {
         $UserType = "Admin"
      }
   }

function prompt
{
   # Fun stuff if using the standard PowerShell prompt; not useful for Console2.
   # This, and the variables above, could be commented out.
   if($UserType -eq "Admin")
   {
      $host.UI.RawUI.WindowTitle = "" + $(get-location) + " : Admin"
      $host.UI.RawUI.ForegroundColor = "white"
   }
   else
   {
      $host.ui.rawui.WindowTitle = $(get-location)
   }

   Write-Host("")
   $statusString = ""
   $symbolicref = git symbolic-ref HEAD
   if($symbolicref -ne $NULL)
   {
      $statusString += "GIT [" + $symbolicref.substring($symbolicref.LastIndexOf("/") +1) + "] "

      $status = git status --porcelain #--untracked-files=all
   
      if ( $status )
      {
         $matches = [regex]::matches([system.string]::join("`n", $status), "(?m)^.{2}")
         
         $statusTotals =  # Create hash table
         
         foreach ( $match in $matches )
         {
            if ( ![string]::IsNullOrEmpty($match.Value) )
            {
               $matchValue = $match.Value.Replace(" ", "-")
               
               if ( !$statusTotals.ContainsKey($matchValue) )
               {
                  $statusTotals.Add($matchValue, 1)
               }
               else
               {
                  $statusTotals.Set_Item($matchValue, $statusTotals.Get_Item($matchValue) + 1)
               }
            }
         }
   
         foreach ( $dictEntry in $statusTotals.GetEnumerator() | Sort-Object Name)
         {
            $statusString += $outVal = [string]::format("{0}:{1} ", $dictEntry.Name, $dictEntry.Value)
         }
      }
      else
      {
         $statusString += "nothing to commit (working dir clean)"
      }
   }
   else
   {
      $statusString = "PS "
   }

   if ($statusString.StartsWith("GIT")) {
      Write-Host ($statusString + [System.Environment]::NewLine + $(get-location) + ">") -nonewline -foregroundcolor yellow
   }
   else {
      Write-Host ($statusString + $(get-location) + ">") -nonewline -foregroundcolor green
   }
   return " "
}

You can place your profile.ps1 file in your ~\Document\WindowsPowerShell folder.

I created a short screen cast to go over the Git PowerShell prompt as well:

Hope you like it :-) It has brought me much Git PowerShell happiness :-D