Feedback provider for legacy usage

[SteveL-MSFT]

Summary of the new feature / enhancement

Users switching from cmd or bash may have muscle memory for commonly used commands with parameters. It would be useful to have a FeedbackProvider detect this and inform the user what the correct PowerShell syntax would be and have a predictor so that it can fill in the suggested fix.

Common use cases:

rm -rf
dir /s/q

Please add your own to this issue.

To clarify, as it seems some folks misunderstood the intent of this issue, the idea here is to leverage the Feedback provider model we added in PowerShell 7.4, so that if you were to type:

rm -rf

It would fail like it does today, but as part of the response, you would get something like:

[general]
  It appears you are trying to recursively and forcibly remove files.  In PowerShell, the correct syntax would be:
  
  rm -r -fo

In this case, trying to keep the explanation text short and also using short hand since this is interactive only.

[rainersigwald]

From cmd, I find myself doing

• dir /s /b
• rd /s /q

[sylveon]

Yes, rd /s /q is the primary reason I'm still using cmd instead of PowerShell

[frndlyy]

ipconfig
arp
netstat
tracert
ping
route

[AdilHindistan]

dir /a:h to see hidden files
cmd /c dir /a:h works of course, I just get an error first and remember to add that

[ehmiiz]

nslookup
ping -t
shutdown /r /t 0
echo
wget
curl
set (to display environment variables, cmd)
icacls (huge rabbit hole but would be nice if it had a translation table, from icacls to set-acl)

[rhubarb-geek-nz]

In recent history this has been provided for UNIX by "rosetta stones", eg https://www.lurklurk.org/rosetta.html or https://bhami.com/rosetta.html. This would be easier to manage as an external page rather than a feedback provider.

One might say that the origin of the problem in PowerShell is the concept of mapping aliases of commands with the same name to something that does something different.

[sylveon]

Rosetta stones does not solve the frustration of broken muscle memory

[mtnrbq]

ls -la
Always gets me

[jhoneill]

ipconfig
arp
netstat
tracert
ping
route

These commands all still work in PowerShell. There are equivalent commands for some things, but if you want Test-NetConnection instead of ping it is probably because you want different functionality

nslookup
ping -t
shutdown /r /t 0
echo
wget
curl
set (to display environment variables, cmd)
icacls (huge rabbit hole but would be nice if it had a translation table, from icacls to set-acl)

Mostly the same although there are some things in shutdown.exe that stop-computer / restart-computer doesn't same able to do. Set is an obvious one which is missing. Things like curl vs invoke-webrequest if you know curl and you don't need any other functionality then using what you would use in another shell is fine. .
Echo is aliased so the muscle memory works

dir /a:h to see hidden files cmd /c dir /a:h works of course, I just get an error first and remember to add that

It took me ages to learn that dir -force in Powershell returned hidden and system files, but "filter to just hidden" is clunky.

One that gets me is in most languages we can create an object with Var = New Object-type, but in PS, New is the old -Object cmdlet that doesn't have an alias to the verb without the -Object

[adelarsq]

rm -rf
ls -la
df -h
So unix like tools would be a cool thing

[rhubarb-geek-nz]

Users switching from cmd or bash may have muscle memory for commonly used commands with parameters.

Is there a need on Linux or macOS? Most of the commands mentioned simply use the underlying implementation so should just work.

PS /home/bythesea> get-command mkdir,ls,pwd,cat,echo,rm,df,curl,wget,ping,traceroute

CommandType     Name                                               Version    Source
-----------     ----                                               -------    ------
Application     mkdir                                              0.0.0.0    /bin/mkdir
Application     ls                                                 0.0.0.0    /bin/ls
Alias           pwd -> Get-Location                                           
Application     cat                                                0.0.0.0    /bin/cat
Alias           echo -> Write-Output                                          
Application     rm                                                 0.0.0.0    /bin/rm
Application     df                                                 0.0.0.0    /bin/df
Application     curl                                               0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/curl
Application     wget                                               0.0.0.0    /usr/bin/wget
Application     ping                                               0.0.0.0    /bin/ping
Application     traceroute                                         0.0.0.0    /usr/sbin/traceroute

[rhubarb-geek-nz]

It appears you are trying to recursively and forcibly remove files. In PowerShell, the correct syntax would be:

rm -r -fo

But this isn't really true, because while it is an alias on Windows it uses the native command on Linux and macOS

On Linux

PS> get-command rm

CommandType     Name                                               Version    Source
-----------     ----                                               -------    ------
Application     rm                                                 0.0.0.0    /bin/rm

On Windows

PS> get-command rm

CommandType     Name                                               Version    Source
-----------     ----                                               -------    ------
Alias           rm -> Remove-Item

So it would be more correct to say

It appears you are trying to recursively and forcibly remove files.  In PowerShell, the correct syntax would be:

   Remove-Item -Recurse -Force

If you want users to write portable scripts.