An escaped String and a string seem identical

[LaurentDardenne]

With

Write-host "$Name, action !"; Write-host "`$Name, action !"; Write-host "Name, action !" 

For the second , the escape character is not explained
For the last : "String in which variables would be expanded.", but it is just a string whitout variable.

[Jawz84]

About the second expamle:

"`$Name, action !"

Where the backtick ` is not explained: this is also a Tokenizer/AST issue I think. After tokenizing has taken place, the backtick is gone, and the string is just a string with a $ character in it, without the semantic meaning of a variable marker.

Here we can see it in action:

So the solution could be simply to check the Extent for backtics, and if they are present, explain them. If you are interested, this is not a complicated fix. This is the relevant code where this could be added:

explainpowershell/explainpowershell.analysisservice/AstVisitorExplainer.cs

Lines 821 to 865 in 9b2a344

	public override AstVisitAction VisitStringConstantExpression(StringConstantExpressionAst stringConstantExpressionAst)
	{
	var explanation = new Explanation
	{
	CommandName = stringConstantExpressionAst.StringConstantType.ToString(),
	HelpResult = HelpTableQuery("about_quoting_rules")
	}.AddDefaults(stringConstantExpressionAst, explanations);
	var hasDollarSign = stringConstantExpressionAst.Value.Contains('$');
	switch (stringConstantExpressionAst.StringConstantType)
	{
	case StringConstantType.SingleQuoted:
	explanation.Description = "String in which variables will not be expanded.";
	break;
	case StringConstantType.SingleQuotedHereString:
	explanation.Description = "Multiline here-string in which variables will not be expanded.";
	break;
	case StringConstantType.DoubleQuoted:
	if (hasDollarSign)
	{
	explanation.Description = "String in which variables will be expanded.";
	}
	else
	{
	explanation.Description = "String in which variables would be expanded.";
	}
	break;
	case StringConstantType.DoubleQuotedHereString:
	if (hasDollarSign)
	{
	explanation.Description = "Multiline here-string in which variables will be expanded.";
	}
	else
	{
	explanation.Description = "Multiline here-string in which variables would be expanded.";
	}
	break;
	case StringConstantType.BareWord:
	return AstVisitAction.SkipChildren;
	}
	explanations.Add(explanation);
	return AstVisitAction.Continue;
	}

A test for this could be added here:

explainpowershell/explainpowershell.analysisservice.tests/Invoke-SyntaxAnalyzer.Tests.ps1

Line 9 in 9b2a344

As for the last one, that explanation is subtle, it only mentions that variables would be expanded (if they were present). It's just there to explain the difference between single quotes and double qoutes. Do you feel it's confusing?