Whitespace

Indentation

For all indentation, use 4 spaces instead of tabs. There should be no tab characters in the file unless they are in a here-string.

No Trailing Whitespace After Backticks

Backticks should always be directly followed by a newline

Newline at End of File

All files must end with a newline, see StackOverflow.

Newline Character Encoding

Save newlines using CR+LF instead of CR. For interoperability reasons, we recommend that you follow these instructions when installing Git on Windows so that newlines saved to GitHub are simply CRs.

No More Than Two Consecutive Newlines

Code should not contain more than two consecutive newlines unless they are contained in a here-string.

Bad:

function Get-MyValue
{
    Write-Verbose -Message 'Getting MyValue'


    return $MyValue
}

Bad:

function Get-MyValue
{
    Write-Verbose -Message 'Getting MyValue'
    return $MyValue
}

function Write-Log
{
    Write-Verbose -Message 'Logging...'
}

Good:

function Get-MyValue
{
    Write-Verbose -Message 'Getting MyValue'
    return $MyValue
}

Good:

function Get-MyValue
{
    Write-Verbose -Message 'Getting MyValue'
    return $MyValue
}

function Write-Log
{
    Write-Verbose -Message 'Logging...'
}

One Newline Before Braces

Each curly brace should be preceded by a newline unless assigning to a variable.

Bad:

if ($booleanValue) {
    Write-Verbose -Message "Boolean is $booleanValue"
}

Good:

if ($booleanValue)
{
    Write-Verbose -Message "Boolean is $booleanValue"
}

When assigning to a variable, opening curly braces should be on the same line as the assignment operator.

Bad:

$scriptBlockVariable =
{
    Write-Verbose -Message 'Executing script block'
}

Bad:

$hashtableVariable =
@{
    Key1 = 'Value1'
    Key2 = 'Value2'
}

Good:

$scriptBlockVariable = {
    Write-Verbose -Message 'Executing script block'
}

Good:

$hashtableVariable = @{
    Key1 = 'Value1'
    Key2 = 'Value2'
}

One Newline After Opening Brace

Each opening curly brace should be followed by only one newline.

Bad:

function Get-MyValue
{

    Write-Verbose -Message 'Getting MyValue'

    return $MyValue
}

Bad:

function Get-MyValue
{ Write-Verbose -Message 'Getting MyValue'

    return $MyValue
}

Good:

function Get-MyValue
{
    Write-Verbose -Message 'Getting MyValue'
    return $MyValue
}

Two Newlines After Closing Brace

Each closing curly brace ending a function, conditional block, loop, etc. should be followed by exactly two newlines unless it is directly followed by another closing brace. If the closing brace is followed by another closing brace or continues a conditional or switch block, there should be only one newline after the closing brace.

Bad:

function Get-MyValue
{
    Write-Verbose -Message 'Getting MyValue'
    return $MyValue
} Get-MyValue

Bad:

function Get-MyValue
{ Write-Verbose -Message 'Getting MyValue'

    if ($myBoolean)
    {
        return $MyValue
    }

    else
    {
        return 0
    }

}
Get-MyValue

Good:

function Get-MyValue
{
    Write-Verbose -Message 'Getting MyValue'

    if ($myBoolean)
    {
        return $MyValue
    }
    else
    {
        return 0
    }
}

Get-MyValue

One Space Between Type and Variable Name

If you must declare a variable type, type declarations should be separated from the variable name by a single space.

Bad:

function Get-TargetResource
{
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param ()

    [Int]$number = 2
}

Good:

function Get-TargetResource
{
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param ()

    [Int] $number = 2
}

One Space on Either Side of Operators

There should be one blank space on either side of all operators.

Bad:

function Get-TargetResource
{
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param ()

    $number=2+4-5*9/6
}

Bad:

function Get-TargetResource
{
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param ()

    if ('example'-eq'example'-or'magic')
    {
        Write-Verbose -Message 'Example found.'
    }
}

Good:

function Get-TargetResource
{
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param ()

    $number = 2 + 4 - 5 * 9 / 6
}

Good:

function Get-TargetResource
{
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param ()

    if ('example' -eq 'example' -or 'magic')
    {
        Write-Verbose -Message 'Example found.'
    }
}

One Space Between Keyword and Parenthesis

If a keyword is followed by a parenthesis, there should be single space between the keyword and the parenthesis.

Bad:

function Get-TargetResource
{
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param ()

    if('example' -eq 'example' -or 'magic')
    {
        Write-Verbose -Message 'Example found.'
    }

    foreach($example in $examples)
    {
        Write-Verbose -Message $example
    }
}

Good:

function Get-TargetResource
{
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param ()

    if ('example' -eq 'example' -or 'magic')
    {
        Write-Verbose -Message 'Example found.'
    }

    foreach ($example in $examples)
    {
        Write-Verbose -Message $example
    }
}

Updated on 28 Jan 2019