Running in the Terminal

Running the PowerShell script in the terminal

You may have noticed that the previous notebook command, which was using the PowerShell kernel, also used the PowerShell Core executable: PWSH as the last step (i.e., after the six variable assignments specifying the source and destination settings). We can optionally run this directly in the terminal window using a slightly modified script.

Introductions

Since this is the first time we have referenced the terminal window in the course, let’s take a minute to discuss it.

Over the past couple of decades, it was common for SQL developers using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to open the Command Prompt, and/or PowerShell in a separate window to perform non-SQL operations (e.g., copying files, using FTP, or performing machine level diagnostics).

Azure Data Studio has disrupted that approach by embedding terminal windows, which nicely provides richer integration options. Similar to Notebooks, these terminal windows can be based on available Shell programs supported by ADS. At the time of this writing, the available shells are:

• Command Prompt
• Windows PowerShell
• PowerShell Core (PWSH)
• Git Bash

Let’s see how the Terminal Window works with our dataflow script. To start, you will want to open a terminal window by clicking “View Terminal” from the top Menu Bar. The results are shown below: