• Chad Miller published his Really Simple Data Dictionary – a meta data collector for SQL Server and Oracle. Developed in PowerShell
• Here is a PowerShell script that exports a Raven DB Index to CSV (comma separated values). Raven is an Open Source document database for the .NET/Windows platform
• Alan Renouf wrote a nice PowerShell script, Simple PowerShell selection box, which takes a list of items and puts it in a WinForm combo box, then after selecting the item sends, it down the pipeline. Check out these other posts:
  • Inject Dynamic WPF GUIs into your PowerShell Pipeline
  • 3 More Ways To Inject Dynamic WPF GUIs into your PowerShell Pipeline
  • Update: Dynamic GUIs and the PowerShell Pipeline
• Colleague Daniel Moore chatted with me about his cool Alpha-Blending Colors in PowerShell script. I like his walk through discussing his choice points in refactoring
• Bought my copy of Lee Holmes’ new book PowerShell Cookbook Version 2

Check it out. HERE is the podcast.

We talked about:

• OData – Open Data Protocol http://www.odata.org/
• PowerShell
• WPK (WPF for PowerShell, think Tcl/Tk)
• PowerShell and Data visualization, HERE, HERE and HERE
• and more

I want to thank Richard and Greg for having me on, smart guys and smart questions. They got me thinking about next steps for using PowerShell and features to add to the OData PowerShell Explorer.

The Open Data Protocol (OData) is a Web protocol for querying and updating data that provides a way to unlock your data and free it from silos that exist in applications today.

Open Data Protocol Home

One of the many interesting parts of this open source module is, it is a GUI written in PowerShell built on top of  PowerShell code. You can either use the GUI to navigate the data or do it directly at the command line. Both are driven by the OData PowerShell module.

Another interesting note is the GUI’s ‘Drill Down’ buttons dynamically change depending on which service and collection you are viewing.

Same goes for the command line objects. The objects methods are dynamically built on the fly as you navigate the details of a collection and drill down.

Using the PowerShell WPK GUI with OData Services

Using the PowerShell Command Line with OData Services

Great Automation Story

Using the OData PowerShell module at the command line blends the power of Open Data Protocol for sharing and PowerShell’s great range of cmdlets to slice, dice, transform and store data.

In a few lines of PowerShell you can fetch information from several data services and then export them to Excel, Databases, XML and more.

Query Options

The PowerShell OData module also supports OData query options like $expand, $filter, $top, $skip and more. So for example you could do this: 

Import-Module C:\CodePlex\psodata\trunk\modules\OData.psm1            

$netflix = New-ODataService "http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog"
$netflix.People("`$filter=endswith(Name, 'Abbott')")            

# Results
Id       Name
--       ----
189      Bruce Abbott
190      Bud Abbott
196      George Abbott
20006674 Mark Abbott
20013692 Philip Abbott
20017929 John Abbott
20018086 David Abbott
20031575 Abdul Malik Abbott
20038388 Diahnne Abbott
20045891 Annie Abbott
20057657 Jennifer Abbott
20057988 Norman Abbott
.....

There are many ways to subset the data. This is faster because there is less data returned from the remote server. An alternative would eliminate the $filter query option and use PowerShell’s Where-Object {$_.name.EndsWith(‘Abbott’)}. The tradeoff being that all the data is fetched from the server and then subsetted.

Summary

I’ll continue to grow the PowerShell module to encompass additional features and surface them in the GUI as well.

Meanwhile grab the code and let me know what you think.

Resources

• Open Data Protocol by Example
• OData Workshop Screencast – Introduction to Protocol
• OData Primer

I like Jeffrey Snover’s tweet – Become a first follower and join the dance! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ&sns=em

• Silverlight Profiling PowerShell helper – Jason Jarrett uses PowerShell to capture and simply the steps of profiling his Silverlight app
• Script everything with PowerShell and IronRuby – shows how to use PowerShell Runspaces in IronRuby. Same as you would in C#
• Creating WPF UIs for PowerShell with PowerBoots and Visual Studio WPF Designer – Joel Bennett creates a WPF GUI in Visual Studio and use the Xaml file in PowerShell PowerBoots
• A PowerShell Wander: ToolBox Mindset, –ExpandProperty, DMZs and Remote Profiles – Jeffrey Snover writes about PowerShell as a toolbox and has general purpose utilities that creative people can use their inspiration to do things that the tool designers didn’t think of when they developed the tool
• Richard Siddaway uses the Compare-Object cmdlet in Comparing folder contents for diffing subdirectories
• Very useful Test-Member – The Missing PowerShell Cmdlet – Verifies whether a specific property or method member exists for a given .NET object
• PowerShell Script to Connect .ISO to a VM [Hyper-V]

The 2010 Scripting Games Events

There are Beginner and Advanced events, prizes and lots to learn, I know I will.

PowerShell is an Automation Platform

Surfaced as a command line console and scripting language.

Become a productive IT Pro or Productive Programmer as never before on the Windows platform.

Watch the games and check out enormous range of applying PowerShell to your daily automation needs.

You can even use PowerShell to build WPF GUIs with WPK.

Sign Up

See you there!

The creators have seen a dramatic improvement in productivity, ability to leverage entry level developers, and a massive reduction in development costs. The framework helps your developers follow the right path and do the right thing.

Channel9 ARCast videos

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Assuming you have Windows 7 installed (PowerShell comes out of the box) and PowerShell Pack the script below should work.

If you don’t have Windows 7 no problem, you can download PowerShell Version 2 for your OS HERE.

The Viewer

Miguel de Icaza’s talks about NetFlix and OData in his post OData Client goes Open Source.

Here are some other ‘queries’ you can try in the viewer, just copy/paste it in the text box at the top and press enter.

• Name eq ‘The Name of The Rose’
• ReleaseYear le 1989 and ReleaseYear ge 1980 and AverageRating gt 4
• Type eq ‘Movie’ and Instant/Available eq true and (Rating eq ‘G’ or Rating eq ‘PG-13′)
• Type eq ‘Movie’ and Instant/Available eq true and (Rating ne ‘R’ and Rating ne ‘NC-17′ and Rating ne ‘UR’ and Rating ne ‘NR’)
• substringof(‘bank’,Synopsis) and ReleaseYear eq 2010

The Code

Function Get-NetFlixTitles {
    param ($filter)            

    $url = "http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog/Titles?`$filter="                

    $wc   = New-Object net.webclient
    $feed = [xml]($wc.downloadstring("$($url)$($filter)"))            

    $feed |
        select -ExpandProperty feed |
        select -ExpandProperty entry |
            ForEach {
                New-Object PSObject -Property @{
                Title = $_.title.'#text'
                Url = $_.properties.TinyUrl
            }
    }
}            

Import-Module wpk            

New-Window -Title "NetFlix OData" -WindowStartupLocation CenterScreen -Width 1200 -Height 600 -Show -On_Loaded {
    $lstBox = $window | Get-ChildControl lstBox
    $lstBox.ItemsSource = @(Get-NetFlixTitles "ReleaseYear eq 2010")
} {
    New-Grid -Rows 32, 1* -Columns 300, 900* {            

        New-TextBox -Name txtBox -Text "ReleaseYear eq 2010" -Row 0 -ColumnSpan 2 -Margin 3 -On_PreviewKeyUp {
            if($_.Key -eq "Enter") {
                $lstBox = $window | Get-ChildControl lstBox
                $txtBox = $window | Get-ChildControl txtBox
                $lstBox.ItemsSource = @(Get-NetFlixTitles "$($txtBox.Text)")
            }
        }            

        New-ListBox -Name lstBox -Row 1 -Column 0 -DisplayMemberPath Title `
            -On_SelectionChanged {
                $browser = $window | Get-ChildControl browser
                $browser.Source = $this.SelectedItem.Url
            }            

        New-WebBrowser -Name browser -Column 1 -Row 1
    }
}

Download the PowerShell Script

An Overview of MVC4WPF – Part 1 of 3

via Bill Sempf