Hello,
II use a hash table capture the parameter inputs from the PowerShell $args variable and convert this hash table
to a custom object.
For some reason the code works fine only if I cast the data from the hash table to the screen first before I
convert the hash table to the custom object. If I did not cast the data of the hash table to the screen,
the custom object outputs only one item from the hash table. The code is listed below:
$cmdLine = $args
$hash = @{}
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $cmdLine.Count; $i++) {
$param = $cmdLine[$i]
$paramValue = $cmdLine[$i+1]
switch ($param) {
{($param -eq ‘-?’) -or ($param -eq ‘/?’)} {
$hash.Add(‘Help’,$true)
}
{($param -eq ‘-u’) -or ($param -eq ‘/u’)} {
$hash.Add(‘Username’,$paramValue)
}
{($param -eq ‘-f’) -or ($param -eq ‘/f’)} {
$hash.Add(‘Path’,$paramValue)
}
}
}
if the line below is commented out only one item is listed by the custom object
$hash
if ($hash.count -gt 0) {
New-Object –TypeName PSObject -Property $hash
}
Any comment or help will be appreciated.
Thanks.
What arguments are you passing to this code when you have problems?
And on a side note, why not just define a parameter block and let PowerShell handle all the parsing for you? That’s one of the basic advantages to using PowerShell in the first place, as compared to old command-line utilities and scripts which had to do this sort of thing.
Dave,
Supposed I have the script saved as Get-Arguments.ps1. I launch the command below to get the folder path, user name, and help info.
.\Get-Arguments.ps1 -u account -f c:\test -?
I get the correct custom object output as shown below along with the output from the hash table when I had the $hash line active.
Name Value
Username account
Path c:\test
Help True
Username : account
Path : c:\test
Help : True
However, once the $hash line is commented out, I only get only the Username property:
Username
account
By the way, below is the output form $PSVersionTable:
Name Value
PSVersion 4.0
WSManStackVersion 3.0
SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1
CLRVersion 4.0.30319.18408
BuildVersion 6.3.9600.16406
PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.2
Thanks.
Odd. Your code works fine for me, with both the script and the command to call it copied and pasted from your posts. I’m also running PowerShell 4.0.
Here’s how I would do it, eliminating the need to roll your own parsing code:
[CmdletBinding()]
param (
[string]
$Path,
[string]
$UserName,
[switch]
$Help
)
# If you want to convert the command-line arguments to an object for some reason at this point,
# the $PSBoundParameters variable is already a dictionary:
New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $PSBoundParameters
On another side note, the -Help or /? switch isn’t really in keeping with usual PowerShell practices; that’s another old approach used for console applications. In PowerShell, I would instead define a comment-based help block for your script or function, and users would call Get-Help on that command when they need to.
The parameter block you suggested works fine with the plain .ps1 file. However, when the script is packaged by a script editor
like PrimalScript or other script editors, it does not work.
That was the reason why I had resort to the old $args PowerShell variable.
By the way, when I tried to use the $PSBoundParameters variable in my script, I got no output.
What Operating System are you running this under?
Never mind for my comment about $PSBoundParameters. The code below works, but again only one output from the
command line even if I entered the command line as Get-Arguments.ps1 -username account -path c:\test.
UserName
account
[CmdletBinding()]
param (
[string]
$Path,
[string]
$UserName,
[switch]
$Help
)
New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $PSBoundParameters
If you’re using some tool to package the script to exe, or something like that, you’ll probably have to contact the vendor for that tool. I’ve only done that once, at a customer’s request, and I forget which tool they used. I do remember that an extra command-line argument had to be used when running the packaged version (something like MyPackagedScript.exe -Arguments -UserName account -Path c:\path -Help . Everything after -Arguments was passed to the underlying script after it was extracted.)