WebDev.WebServer PowerShell Function

In experimenting with NWSGI yesterday, I found I wanted the ability to launch the development web server that ships with Visual Studio (WebDev.WebServer.exe) from the command line. I hacked up the following PowerShell function and dropped it into my $profile so I can easily launch the web server in any directory any time I need. Thought I’d share:

function webdev($path,$port=8080,$vpath='/')
{
    $spath = 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\DevServer9.0\WebDev.WebServer.EXE'
    $rpath = resolve-path $path  
    $params = "/path:`"$rpath`" /port:$port /vpath:$vpath"  

    $ignore = [System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start($spath, $params)  
    "Started WebDev Server for '$path' directory on port $port"  
}

There’s probably an easier way to launch an exe with parameters than Sys.Diags.Process.Start, but it works. Using resolve-path is the key, that lets me pass in a relative path on the command line, but the script converts it to an absolute path in order to pass it to the webdev server. Also, I’m not sure I should have hard coded the path to the exe, but again it works and it’s not like it’s tough to change.

Enjoy.

Update: Tomas Restrepo pointed out an easier way to start the process:

&'C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\DevServer9.0\WebDev.WebServer.EXE' "/path:$rpath" "/port:$port" "/vpath:$vpath"

I couldn’t figure out how to correctly launch the exe when the physical path to serve has a space in it. Thanks Tomas.

This entry was posted by DevHawk on March 20, 2008. It was posted in Development. It was tagged ASP.NET and PowerShell.

Comments:

Pretty cool Harry. There's actually an easier way of running it, something like this would work just fine: &'C:Program FilesCommon Filesmicrosoft sharedDevServer9.0WebDev.WebServer.EXE' "/path:$rpath" "/port:$port" "/vpath:$vpath"
This comment was posted by Tomas Restrepo on March 20, 2008 at 6:01 PM.
I wrote a similar function some time ago. It's a bit longer, but it works on x64, and on machines with only .NET FW 2.0 installed: # Start-WebDevServer function TryLocateWebDevServer($EnvVar, $SubPath) { $e = 'env:' + $EnvVar if (Test-Path $e) { $wdpath = Join-Path (Get-Content $e) (Join-Path $SubPath 'WebDev.WebServer.EXE') if (Test-Path $wdpath) { return $wdpath } } return $FALSE } function Start-WebDevServer($Path, $Port=8080, $VPath='/') { if (-not $Path -or -not (Test-Path $Path)) { Throw "Invalid Path specified!" } $locations = ('CommonProgramFiles(x86)', 'Microsoft SharedDevServer9.0'), ('CommonProgramFiles', 'Microsoft SharedDevServer9.0'), ('SystemRoot', 'Microsoft.NETFrameworkv2.0.50727') foreach ($l in $locations) { $wdpath = TryLocateWebDevServer $l[0] $l[1] if ($wdpath) { break; } } if (-not $wdpath) { Throw 'Cannot locate WebDev.WebServer.EXE!' } $rpath = Resolve-Path $Path Write-Host "Starting WebDev.WebServer located at:" Write-Host " $wdpath" Write-Host " Parameters: ""/path:$rpath"" ""/port:$Port"" ""/vpath:$VPath""" & $wdpath "/path:$rpath" "/port:$Port" "/vpath:$VPath" } Set-Alias webdev Start-WebDevServer Cheers!
This comment was posted by C-J Berg on March 21, 2008 at 3:28 PM.
@C-J, I really like how you added the function to find the exe rather than hard coding it.
This comment was posted by DevHawk on March 24, 2008 at 11:19 AM.
> $ignore = [System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start(...) There are three canonical PSH ways to ignore the result of an expression: - Assign to $null - Redirect to $null (.... > $null) - Cast to [void]
This comment was posted by Richard on March 26, 2008 at 7:57 AM.

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The information in this weblog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer. It is solely my opinion. Inappropriate comments will be deleted at the authors discretion.