What PowerShell version introduced a given cmdlet?

I'm putting #Requires -Version at the top of my script, but need to figure out what version I require. I was hoping to query what version of PowerShell introduced each of the cmdlets I call. But I don't see that in the Get-Help -verbose output for one of the cmdlets. I didn't find a canonical web page listing for it.

Anyone know if there's a standard way to look up what version of PowerShell introduced a particular cmdlet? Or, is there a better way to accomplish what I'm trying to do?

Solution

So, as far as I am aware the "standard" way to look this up is to read MSDN. :-) You can get to the relevant page pretty easily using the -Online switch for Get-Help, for example:

Get-Help -Name "Get-DscConfiguration" -Online

Another approach might be to fire up powershell.exe using the -Version switch to set a specific version, e.g. powershell.exe -Version 2 then use the Get-Command cmdlet to see if your cmdlets are listed or not.

I have enjoyed myself! Here is some code that seems to work OK parsing a script and then working out if the commands are valid cmdlets in different PS versions. At this point, it doesn't seem that "1.0" or "5.0" are supported by the -PSVersion switch on Start-Job though.

param(
  $file = 'C:\scripts\PowerShell\Toolkit\Get-PSVersionCompatibility.ps1'
)

New-Variable tokens
New-Variable parseerrors
$p = [System.Management.Automation.Language.Parser]::ParseFile($file,[ref]$tokens,[ref]$parseerrors)
$Commands = $tokens | ?{$_.TokenFlags -contains "CommandName"} | Sort -Unique | Select Value

$ScriptBlock = {
  param($PSVersion,$Commands)

  $Output = New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{PSVersion = $PSVersion}


  foreach($Command in $Commands) {
    if([String]::IsNullOrEmpty($Command.Value)){continue}

    if(Get-Command | ?{$_.Name -eq $Command.Value}) {
      $Available = $true
    } else {
      $Available = $false
    }

    $Output | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name $($Command.Value) -Value $Available
  }

  return $Output
}

$Results = @()

foreach($PSVersion in 2..4) {
  $job = Start-Job -PSVersion "$PSVersion.0" -ScriptBlock $ScriptBlock -ArgumentList $PSVersion,$Commands

  Wait-Job $job | Out-Null
  $Results += (Receive-Job $job | Select PSVersion,*-*)
  Remove-Job $job
}

$Results | FT -AutoSize

Remove-Variable tokens
Remove-Variable parseerrors

powershell