Intended behaviour for Get-Module -ListAvailable -All is not clear, especially for edition-incompatible modules #7297
Description
Currently Get-Module -ListAvailable -All has a set of hard-to-describe behaviours that don't seem to align well with each other. An example is the following directory structure:
TopModule
+ TopModule.psd1
+ TopModule.psm1
+ TopModule.dll
+ NestedModule
+ NestedModule.psd1
+ NestedModule.psm1
+ Unused
+ AnotherDir
+ UnusedModule.psm1
Observe the following outputs:
> Get-Module -ListAvailable -All .\TopModule
Directory: C:\Users\roholt\Documents\Dev\sandbox
ModuleType Version Name PSEdition ExportedCommands
---------- ------- ---- --------- ----------------
Binary 0.0.0.0 TopModule Desk
> Get-Module -ListAvailable -All .\TopModule\*
Directory: C:\Users\roholt\Documents\Dev\sandbox\TopModule
ModuleType Version Name PSEdition ExportedCommands
---------- ------- ---- --------- ----------------
Manifest 0.0.1 NestedModule Desk
Directory: C:\Users\roholt\Documents\Dev\sandbox
ModuleType Version Name PSEdition ExportedCommands
---------- ------- ---- --------- ----------------
Binary 0.0.0.0 TopModule Desk
Manifest 0.0.1 TopModule Desk
Script 0.0 TopModule Desk
> Get-Module -ListAvailable -All ./TopModule/
Get-Module : The specified module 'C:\Users\roholt\Documents\Dev\sandbox\TopModule\' was not found. Update the Name parameter to point to a valid path, and then try again.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-Module -ListAvailable -All ./TopModule/
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ResourceUnavailable: (C:\Users\roholt...dbox\TopModule\:String) [Get-Module], FileNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Modules_ModuleNotFoundForGetModule,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetModuleCommand
> mv .\TopModule $PowerShellDevDir\src\powershell-win-core\bin\debug\netcoreapp2.1\win7-x64\publish\Mod
ules
> Get-Module -ListAvailable -All
...
Directory: C:\users\roholt\documents\dev\powershell\src\powershell-win-core\bin\debug\netcoreapp2.1\win7-x64\publish\Mod
ules\TopModule
ModuleType Version Name PSEdition ExportedCommands
---------- ------- ---- --------- ----------------
Manifest 0.0.1 NestedModule Desk
Script 0.0 NestedModule Desk
Directory:
C:\users\roholt\documents\dev\powershell\src\powershell-win-core\bin\debug\netcoreapp2.1\win7-x64\publish\Modules
ModuleType Version Name PSEdition ExportedCommands
---------- ------- ---- --------- ----------------
Script 0.0 PackageProviderFunctions Desk {New-Feature, New-PackageSource, Write-Error, New-Req...
Script 4.2.0 Pester Desk {Describe, Context, It, Should...}
Script 4.2.0 Pester Desk {Describe, Context, It, Should...}
Script 1.6.0 PowerShellGet Desk {Install-Module, Find-Module, Save-Module, Update-Mod...
Script 1.6.0 PowerShellGet Desk {Install-Module, Find-Module, Save-Module, Update-Mod...
Script 0.0 PSDesiredStateConfiguration Desk {ValidateNodeResourceSource, Test-MofInstanceText, Ge...
Script 6.1.0.0 PSDiagnostics Core {Disable-PSTrace, Disable-PSWSManCombinedTrace, Disab...
Script 0.0 PSDiagnostics Desk {Start-Trace, Enable-PSWSManCombinedTrace, Disable-WS...
Manifest 0.0 PSGet.Resource Desk
Script 2.0.0 PSReadLine Desk {Get-PSReadLineKeyHandler, Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler, ...
Script 0.0 PSReadLine Desk {Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler, Remove-PSReadLineKeyHandle...
Binary 0.0.0.0 ThreadJob Desk
Binary 1.1.1 ThreadJob Desk Start-ThreadJob
Manifest 0.0.1 TopModule Desk
Script 0.0 TopModule Desk
Directory: C:\users\roholt\documents\dev\powershell\src\powershell-win-core\bin\debug\netcoreapp2.1\win7-x64\publish\Mod
ules\TopModule\Unused
ModuleType Version Name PSEdition ExportedCommands
---------- ------- ---- --------- ----------------
Script 0.0 UnusedModule Desk
Summary:
Get-Module -ListAvailable -Allon relative path ending with slash: file not found errorGet-Module -ListAvailable -Allon relative path with no slash: only enumerates top level moduleGet-Module -ListAvailable -Allon all files within module dir (relative path): enumerates only modules to 1 depthGet-Module -ListAvailable -Allwith no arguments, enumerates fully any/all modules below a path on the PSModulePath
The recent CompatiblePSEditions addition makes this behaviour even more complex, since the intent is to hide incompatible modules. For Get-Module -ListAvailable -All, since it currently (in some circumstances) enumerates all modules (not just nested ones but even unused ones), it has to make a choice about whether to show or hide nested psm1/dll/etc modules underneath compatible psd1 modules (i.e. they have no way to declare compatibility themselves, but Get-Module -ListAvailable -All ignores "nestedness").
All of this, I think, means we should discuss what Get-Module -ListAvailable -All should do, what it does do and what it's used for. Ideally we can eventually choose a behaviour (or indeed, set of behaviours) that we can define in an RFC and then implement.
> $PSVersionTable
Name Value
---- -----
PSVersion 6.1.0-preview.3
PSEdition Core
GitCommitId v6.1.0-preview.3-138-gf8ccb9f84755023afa52815d8dacc924757e61b1
OS Microsoft Windows 10.0.17713
Platform Win32NT
PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.3
SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion 3.0