How Can I Source My $Profile From A Powershell Function?

Question

I like to make a lot of changes to my $profile file. After saving a change, I would like to source the file using an "sop" alias. Here's how I hope to accomplish that:

set-alias sop Source-Profile function Source-Profile { . $profile } 

This function does not throw any errors, so it appears to work. However, when I do make changes to my $profile file, this function doesn’t appear to to anything. I still have to type . $profile from the PS prompt to re-evaluate that file. And that's ok, but it is a minor pain. I would rather use an alias to source that file.

What am I missing here?

Answer 1

Dot-sourcing a file runs it in the current scope (rather than its own scope). To source a file in a function and get the definitions in the file to be included in the calling scope, you need to dot-source the function. Try this:

. sop 

Answer 2

13 year old bump for anyone that might find this later on:

I'm pretty sure Microsoft added to PowerShell functionality at some point, either way from now on you can use a 'global' scope for your sourcing function so you don't need to deal with putting an annoying dot when sourcing your profile.

function global:Source-Profile{ . $PROFILE } 

Works now.