Is there a command/program/Cmdlet that writes to the prompt buffer? - powershell

Question

I'm trying to see if I can write the output of a command to the prompt buffer to allow for further editing? Something like this, where Write-PromptBuffer is the command desired:
PS C:\> echo "foo bar" | Write-PromptBuffer
PS C:\> foo bar
Something equivalent to what zsh does with print -z (see http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/zshguide03.html)
My main motivation for this is something along the lines of:
PS C:\> Get-Content (Get-PSReadLineOption).HistorySavePath | fzf
Which would "dump" the selected (accepted in fzf lingo) entry as an editable command in the prompt.
(Note: I'm familiar with PSFzf, but I'm trying to find a general purpose command to do this as I have other use cases that would benefit from this)

Answer 1

The PSReadLine module can insert into the buffer, for example
[Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::Insert("foo bar")
However, as this is intended to edit the current line buffer and not the following line you will need so do something like this
#pipeline to variable $myBuffer function
function Write-PromptBuffer {
param (
[parameter(ValueFromPipeline, ValueFromRemainingArguments = $true)]
$global:myBuffer
)
}
#Add a PSReadLineKeyHandler to insert $myBuffer
Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler -Key Alt+x `
-ScriptBlock {
param($key, $arg) # The arguments are ignored in this example
#write to buffer
[Microsoft.PowerShell.PSConsoleReadLine]::Insert($myBuffer)
}
Now populate $myBuffer with a string and call it with Alt+w
PS C:\> echo "foo bar" | Write-PromptBuffer
PS C:\> foo bar
Alternatively and not pretty, you could use SendKeys
function Write-PromptBuffer {
param (
[parameter(ValueFromPipeline, ValueFromRemainingArguments = $true)]
$myBuffer
)
(new-object -com wscript.shell).SendKeys($myBuffer)
}
Hope this helps,