FormatEnumerationLimit

FormatEnumerationLimit

Local FormatEnumerationLimit is ignored

Help about_Preference_Variables

$FormatEnumerationLimit
-----------------------
    Determines how many enumerated items are included in a display. This
    variable does not affect the underlying objects; just the display.
    When the value of $FormatEnumerationLimit is less than the number of
    enumerated items, Windows PowerShell adds an ellipsis (...) to
    indicate items not shown.

    Valid values: Integers (Int32)
    Default value: 4

Formatting uses only the global value of $FormatEnumerationLimit. In other words, it is useless to set this variable locally in a function in order to control format enumeration limit.

The workaround is to change this value globally. Ideally the value should be changed temporarily and then restored. To do this properly is rather tedious:

# save the global value
$oldFEL = $global:FormatEnumerationLimit

# change it globally
$global:FormatEnumerationLimit = 8

# try/finally to ensure the global value is restored
try {
    # do some formatting
    ... | Format-List
}
finally {
    # restore the global value in the finally block
    $global:FormatEnumerationLimit = $oldFEL
}

Different representation of truncated outputs

v6.2.0-preview.4 started to use … instead of ... for truncated outputs, see test script results.

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Scripts

• Test-1-local-value-ignored.ps1 shows that setting $FormatEnumerationLimit locally has no effect.
• Test-2-global-value-works.ps1 show that changing the global value works.

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• Microsoft Connect 355675