It would be a great idea to use a Docker container in VS code. Imagine the possibilities! Visual Studio Code is a powerful code editor application. It is extensible and can be used to access remote containers using PowerShell within VS Code.
How do you do it? And why would you want? Let’s talk about all this in this post.
Why Access Docker Containers in VS Code
PowerShell was once an exclusive Windows application. Because it is the only Windows shell environment, PowerShell has been the preferred choice for IT administrators for many years. PowerShell was also designed with Windows and other Microsoft programs in mind. PowerShell has changed over time.
Microsoft released PowerShell Core in 2016. PowerShell Core was released alongside.Net Core. Both PowerShell Core as well as.Net Core can be used on any platform and are open-source.
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Start training This is because the native PowerShell version has more access to the system components that are expected be installed on Windows systems. There are parts of PowerShell native which contain proprietary intellectual property. These bits are not yet open source.
This means that PowerShell Core will not support certain features. PowerShell Core is still under development so new features are constantly being added. PowerShell Core updates can cause older components to fail.
This can also be problematic when working with scripts. PowerShell can also be used as a scripting language. Because it deals with data, PowerShell is often more powerful than other shell environments like Bash. PowerShell data can be organized and managed as objects. Different shell environments can handle data as strings. Other shell environments may require additional applications to handle data manipulation and conversion. PowerShell does not.
PowerShell’s data handling allows scripts to be more powerful. The AWS SDK, for example, requires structured data to be submitted along with calls to AWS functions. These calls can be made natively by PowerShell because PowerShell is able to pass data objects directly to the AWS SDK. Other environments cannot.
Developers need to have a testing environment in order to work with their scripts. Developers will also need to test their scripts prior to updating PowerShell Core, as PowerShell Core changes can cause problems.
Docker containers are a great way to create a testing environment. Containers separate applications from each other in a sandboxed environment. This allows you to run and test different versions of applications in a sandboxed environment. You can also store and segregate code in those containers that won’t impact the rest of your computer.
Developers may wish to access a remote PowerShell container in VS Code, despite VS Code being able access the native PowerShell version on a Windows machine.
An Overview of Remote Container Access with PowerShell [VIDEO]
Trevor Sullivan demonstrates how to access remote containers using PowerShell. He also explains how to ensure that your code works wherever you deploy it.
How to use VS Code and a PowerShell container
Now you need to learn how to link VS Code to containers. Let’s now see how to connect to remote containers using PowerShell in VS Code.
Before you can get started, ensure Docker is installed on your system. Docker is an application that allows containers to be run. Containers can be thought of as portable applications that are built around a Linux environment. But