PowerShell.MCP v1.3.7 - Enhanced Text File Cmdlets with Visual Diff Preview

[yotsuda]

Enhanced Text File Cmdlets with Visual Diff Preview

This release brings significant improvements to text file operations, featuring a new visual diff preview for -WhatIf, tail display support with negative line ranges, and consistent ANSI color output across all cmdlets.

✨ What's New

🔍 Visual Diff Preview with -WhatIf

Update-MatchInFile -WhatIf now displays a detailed line-by-line diff preview showing exactly what will change:

• Red highlighting for text being removed
• Green highlighting for text being added
• Surrounding context lines for clarity
• No file modification until you confirm

# Preview changes before applying
Update-MatchInFile config.json -Contains "localhost" -Replacement "production" -WhatIf

📜 Tail Display with Negative LineRange

Show-TextFile now supports negative line numbers to display the last N lines of a file:

# Show last 10 lines
Show-TextFile log.txt -LineRange -10

# Equivalent to above
Show-TextFile log.txt -LineRange -10,-1

🎨 Consistent ANSI Color Output

All text file cmdlets now use a unified color scheme:

• Bold white headers (==> filename <==)
• Cyan summary messages
• Yellow for search match highlights
• Green for additions
• Red for deletions
• Yellow for WhatIf messages

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📊 What's Changed Since v1.3.6

New Features

Visual Diff Preview:

• Update-MatchInFile -WhatIf shows detailed before/after comparison
• -Confirm with "No" now exits silently without output

Tail Display:

• Added RotateBuffer<T> class for efficient tail operations
• Show-TextFile -LineRange -N displays last N lines
• Negative end values (e.g., 100,-1) mean "to end of file"

Color Improvements:

• Standardized ANSI color scheme across all cmdlets
• Added bold headers to Update-LinesInFile output
• Yellow highlighting for pattern matches in context lines

Improvements

• Prompt display after command execution: The PowerShell prompt now displays immediately after each command completes, making it clearer when the console is ready for the next input

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Show-TextFile gapLine handling to prevent duplicate output
• Fixed 1-line gap display between match groups

Code Quality

• Removed DEBUG logs from Proxy services (cleaner stderr output)
• Removed unused Test-TextFileContains cmdlet
• Refactored cmdlets to use RotateBuffer for consistent tail handling

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🔧 Technical Details

RotateBuffer

A new fixed-capacity circular buffer for efficient "last N items" collection:

var buffer = new RotateBuffer<string>(10);  // Keep last 10 items
foreach (var line in File.ReadLines(path))
    buffer.Add(line);
// buffer now contains last 10 lines

LineRange Parameter Enhancements

Input	Meaning
5	Line 5 only
5,10	Lines 5 to 10
5,-1 or 5,0	Line 5 to end of file
-10	Last 10 lines
-10,-1	Last 10 lines (explicit)

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📄 Installation & Upgrade

# New installation
Install-Module PowerShell.MCP -Force

# Upgrade existing
Update-Module PowerShell.MCP

Update MCP Configuration

1. Get new module path:

(Get-Module PowerShell.MCP).ModuleBase

2. Update claude_desktop_config.json with the path from step 1:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "PowerShell": {
      "command": "C:\\Users\\YourName\\Documents\\PowerShell\\Modules\\PowerShell.MCP\\1.3.7\\bin\\PowerShell.MCP.Proxy.exe"
    }
  }
}

Note: Adjust path as needed for your environment.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

📖 Full Guide: https://github.com/yotsuda/PowerShell.MCP#quick-start

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Full Documentation: https://github.com/yotsuda/PowerShell.MCP

Questions? GitHub Discussions

Report Issues: GitHub Issues

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⚠ Security Notice: Provides complete PowerShell access. Use in trusted environments only.

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This discussion was created from the release PowerShell.MCP v1.3.7 - Enhanced Text File Cmdlets with Visual Diff Preview.