Finding Scripts by Keyword

With an increasing number of PowerShell scripts on your hard drive, it can become hard to find the script you are looking for. Here's a helper function called Find-Script. Simply submit a keyword, and PowerShell will locate any script within your user profile that has your keyword anywhere inside it.

The result displays in a grid view window, and you can then optionally click and select the file(s) you want to open in the ISE editor.

function Find-Script
{
    param
    (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
        $Keyword,

        $Maximum = 20,
        $StartPath = $env:USERPROFILE
    )

    Get-ChildItem -Path $StartPath -Filter *.ps1 -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
      Select-String -SimpleMatch -Pattern $Keyword -List |
      Select-Object -Property FileName, Path, Line -First $Maximum |
      Out-GridView -Title 'Select Script File' -PassThru |
      ForEach-Object { ise $_.Path }
} 

By default, Find-Script returns only the first 20 scripts that meet your request. With the parameters -Maximum and -StartPath, you can change both the maximum count and the search location.

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