To start a PowerShell instance in a new terminal window on macOS:
Without being able to pass arguments to it:
PS> open -a Terminal $PSHOME/powershell
If you want to run a given command:
Unfortunately, quite a bit more work is needed if you want to pass a command to run in the new PowerShell instance:
In essence, you need to place your command in a temporary, self-deleting, executable shell script that is invoked via a shebang line:
Note: Be sure to run at least PowerShell Core v6.0.0-beta.6 for this to work.
Function Start-InNewWindowMacOS {
param(
[Parameter(Mandatory)] [ScriptBlock] $ScriptBlock,
[Switch] $NoProfile,
[Switch] $NoExit
)
# Construct the shebang line
$shebangLine = '#!/usr/bin/env powershell'
# Add options, if specified:
# As an aside: Fundamentally, this wouldn't work on Linux, where
# the shebang line only supports *1* argument, which is `powershell` in this case.
if ($NoExit) { $shebangLine += ' -NoExit' }
if ($NoProfile) { $shebangLine += ' -NoProfile' }
# Create a temporary script file
$tmpScript = New-TemporaryFile
# Add the shebang line, the self-deletion code, and the script-block code.
# Note:
# * The self-deletion code assumes that the script was read *as a whole*
# on execution, which assumes that it is reasonably small.
# Ideally, the self-deletion code would use
# 'Remove-Item -LiteralPath $PSCommandPath`, but,
# as of PowerShell Core v6.0.0-beta.6, this doesn't work due to a bug
# - see https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/issues/4217
# * UTF8 encoding is desired, but -Encoding utf8, regrettably, creates
# a file with BOM. For now, use ASCII.
# Once v6 is released, BOM-less UTF8 will be the *default*, in which
# case you'll be able to use `> $tmpScript` instead.
$shebangLine, "Remove-Item -LiteralPath '$tmpScript'", $ScriptBlock.ToString() |
Set-Content -Encoding Ascii -LiteralPath $tmpScript
# Make the script file executable.
chmod +x $tmpScript
# Invoke it in a new terminal window via `open -a Terminal`
# Note that `open` is a macOS-specific utility.
open -a Terminal -- $tmpScript
}
With this function defined, you can invoke PowerShell with a given command - specified as a script block - as follows:
# Sample invocation
Start-InNewWindowMacOS -NoExit { Get-Date }
start powershell?