In this blog post, I will show you how to create a module with multiple functions using an example. You will see that this is not rocket science. Let’s jump in.

In order to use multiple functions in a module, we have to declare them as functions to export. This also means we need a module manifest file with that statements in it.

Objective

The goal of this tutorial is to provide two functions in a module named Patrick. The two functions are called Get-SmallFiles and Get-BigFiles.

Creating a Module Folder “Patrick”

First of all, we need to create a module folder. We can choose between three folder paths. I will pick the first option, the folder is then created in C:\Program Files\Windows PowerShell, which means that this module will be available to all users.

Here is the code for my folder “Patrick”.

New-Item -Path ($env:PSModulePath -split ';')[0] -ItemType Directory -Name Patrick

Now we have a folder in the module folder!

Creating the Module Manifest File “patrick.psd1”

As mentioned before, we need a psd1 file which serves as our manifest file. We provide all the information needed, especially the two functions: Get-SmallFiles and Get-BigFiles.

$paramHash = @{
    Path = 'C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\Patrick\patrick.psd1'
    RootModule = "patrick.psm1"
    Author = "Patrick Gruenauer"
    CompanyName = "sid-500.com"
    ModuleVersion = "1.0"
    Guid = '56f62aec-33ca-4d8a-8685-c6a87ac9a002'
    PowerShellVersion = "5.1"
    Description = "Testmodul"
    FormatsToProcess = ""
    FunctionsToExport = @('Get-BigFiles', 'Get-SmallFiles')
    AliasesToExport = ""
    VariablesToExport = ""
    CmdletsToExport = ""
   }
   
   New-ModuleManifest @paramHash

Let’s move on with the creation of the PowerShell Module file.

Creating the PowerShell Module File (psm1) with two functions: Get-SmallFiles and Get-BigFiles

Next, we configure the PowerShell module file with all the functions in it, in my case it is Get-SmallFiles and Get-BigFiles.

New-Item -Path 'C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\Patrick' -ItemType File -Name patrick.psm1

The file is empty. Let’s put some content in it.

Add-Content -Path 'C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\Patrick\patrick.psm1' `
-Value 'function Get-BigFiles {Get-ChildItem -Path $home -File -Recurse | Where-Object Length -gt (1MB)}; 
function Get-SmallFiles {Get-ChildItem -Path $home -File -Recurse | Where-Object Length -lt (1MB)}'

Mission accomplished.

How do you know this worked?

Open PowerShell 5 or PowerShell 7.

Type Get-Smallfiles and afterwards Get-BigFiles.

Hope this was useful. See you next time.