{"id":82495,"date":"2017-10-03T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T16:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/?p=82495"},"modified":"2019-02-18T09:10:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T16:10:09","slug":"use-docker-to-automate-testing-of-powershell-core-scripts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/use-docker-to-automate-testing-of-powershell-core-scripts\/","title":{"rendered":"Use Docker to automate testing of PowerShell Core scripts"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Summary:<\/strong> Learn the basics about Docker, and see how to use it for PowerShell Core script testing on different operating systems.<\/p>\n

I’m Dan Ward, a Boston-based .NET software engineer who is just plum crazy about PowerShell and automation. Earlier this year, I uploaded my first GitHub project\u2014a PowerShell whitespace cleaner<\/a> that also replaces aliases with commands and fixes casing issues. Like any manager of a new project, I was excited to see people using it and providing feedback and enhancement requests. But I became concerned when bug reports started coming in: “But I tested this on my machine before uploading, like, a thousand times!”\u009d (How often have you said that?)<\/p>\n

PowerShell Core<\/h2>\n

Turns out I was testing in Windows PowerShell on a Windows machine, and the users having issues were using PowerShell Core that was running natively on non-Windows machines<\/em>. Yes, the next generation of PowerShell is open source, and runs on Windows, Macs, and many Linux distributions. If you haven’t read up on PowerShell Core<\/a> yet, you should<\/a>\u2014or even better, download it<\/a> and try it out now.<\/p>\n

For most scripting activities, Windows PowerShell and PowerShell Core are very similar\u2014but there are still some differences. And because PowerShell Core now runs across different operating systems, you need to start testing across these operating systems if you want to find any unexpected incompatibilities before your clients do.<\/p>\n

But, like you, I really don’t want to buy a lot of new hardware to test my work on different operating systems. And setting up VMs for all these operating systems is time consuming.<\/p>\n

Docker to the Rescue!<\/h2>\n

Docker<\/a> is an awesome containerization technology, and if somehow you haven’t read about it you need to<\/a> right now<\/a>. One of the many benefits of using containers is that you can easily package up software to share with others. And the PowerShell Core team is doing just that: whenever they put out a new version, they provide packages for native installation and Docker images with PowerShell Core<\/a> for popular operating systems. Want to test the latest version of PowerShell Core on Ubuntu? Just pull that image and start it up. In fact, let’s do that right now.<\/p>\n

Docker walkthrough with PowerShell Core images<\/h2>\n

Note: this walkthrough uses Docker for Windows<\/a> on a Windows 10 Pro machine. If you have an older Windows operating system, you would need to use Docker Toolbox, which may not work out of the box in PowerShell.<\/p>\n

If you want to follow along on your own machine, install Docker for Windows before continuing, and download the PowerShell whitespace cleaner.<\/p>\n

First, in a browser, let’s check out the Microsoft PowerShell Core Docker image repository<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

There are several things to note here:<\/p>\n