Series links: Part I, Part II, Part III (Coming)

I wrote a post a day or two ago that indicated how to compare your currently installed AWSPowerShell module with the offering on the PowerShell Gallery (see Part I above). Well, as I suspected, I’m back with an update.

Before we get there, however, I want to mention that Steve Roberts, at AWS, got in touch with me via Twitter about the post. I suspect we’ll be seeing some updates to Get-AWSPowerShellVersion. What’s interesting, is that I found the ListServiceVersionInfo parameter after my post. It seems that the cmdlet does create objects for some of the results it can return, just not everything. As always, I’m looking forward to Steve’s ideas and implementation.

Today, I’m going to share a quickly written advanced function. This will do the comparison for you and return the results in a custom object. Don’t be surprised if I make some more additions and/or changes to the function and post that as well. It really should have an option to download and install the new module if you want it, right?

Function Compare-AWSPowerShellVersion {
<#
.SYNOPSIS
    This advanced function compares the currently installed version of the AWSPowerShell module and the version on the PowerShell Gallery (http://powershellgallery.com).

.DESCRIPTION
    This advanced function compares the currently installed version of the AWSPowerShell module and the version on the PowerShell Gallery (http://powershellgallery.com).

.EXAMPLE
    PS > Compare-AWSPowerShellVersion
    This example compares the currently installed version of the AWSPowerShell module and the version on the PowerShell Gallery.

.NOTES 
    NAME: Compare-AWSPowerShellVersion
    AUTHOR: Tommy Maynard
    COMMENTS: --
    LASTEDIT: 10/19/2016
    VERSION 1.1:
        - Edited notes.
        - Changed Switch to -regex and made the first option an OR for both side indicators.
    VERSION 1.2:
        - Modified results to use a custom object.
    VERSION 1.3:
        - Removed Switch statement: added version determination logic inside custom object creation.
        - Only returning the highest version number from currently installed if more than one version. This is a leftover due to AWS Toolkit install vs. PowerShell Gallery install.
#>
    [CmdletBinding()]
    Param (
    )

    Begin {
        # Set continuation variable for Process block.
        $Continue = $true

        'PowerShellGet','AWSPowerShell' | ForEach-Object {
            Write-Verbose -Message "Determining if the $_ module is available."
            If (-Not(Get-Module -Name $_ -ListAvailable)) {
                Write-Warning -Message "Unable to locate the required $_ module."
                $Continue = $false
            }
        } # End Foreach.
    } # End Begin.

    Process {
        If ($Continue) {
            Write-Verbose -Message 'Collecting the current and newest AWSPowerShell module versions.'
            $CurrentAWSPSModule = ((Get-Module -Name AWSPowerShell -ListAvailable).Version |
                Sort-Object -Descending | Select-Object -First 1).ToString()
            $NewestAWSPSModule = (Find-Module -Name AWSPowerShell).Version.ToString()

            Write-Verbose -Message 'Comparing the AWSPowerShell version and creating custom results object.'
            [PSCustomObject]@{
                Match = If ($CurrentAWSPSModule -eq $NewestAWSPSModule) {$true} Else {$false}
                Current = $CurrentAWSPSModule
                Newest = $NewestAWSPSModule
            }
        } # End If.
    } # End Process.

    End {
    } # End End.
} # End Function: Compare-AWSPowerShellVersion.

Update: After updating to the newest version, I returned a System.Object[] error for my current version, due to having multiple versions and using the ToString method. I’ve modified the code above to only select the first (and highest) module version from those on my system. I think it’s important to point out that I’ve always downloaded and installed using the .msi until this version, and that when I used Install-Module, I included the Scope parameter name with the CurrentUser parameter value. I suspect this is where the problem is originating. Well, this and the fact I haven’t uninstalled the .msi version from Programs and Features.

I shouldn’t have to wait too long to be on an old build to test some more! It seems as though AWS does at least one, daily build. Here’s the full command as I ran it to install the newest version: Find-Module -Name AWSPowerShell | Install-Module -Scope CurrentUser.

Here’s the usage and results since updating to 3.3.11.0.

Compare-AWSPowerShellVersion

Match Current  Newest  
----- -------  ------  
 True 3.3.11.0 3.3.11.0

Update: As suspected, there’s a new build this evening, and it appears the comparison function is still working, as it’s correctly indicated there isn’t a match between what’s installed and what’s available to install.

Compare-AWSPowerShellVersion

Match Current  Newest
----- -------  ------
False 3.3.11.0 3.3.12.0

I updated to the newest version of the module and ran it again. It’s looking good.

Compare-AWSPowerShellVersion

Match Current  Newest
----- -------  ------
 True 3.3.12.0 3.3.12.0