passing array of strings parameter to a script flattens it

PowerShell Help
1

Hi.
I have a script1 that has an array of strings as one of the parameters:
[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
[string]$RDSL

When script1 is called and I supply it 2 (or more) strings, it works fine, but we call script1 from another script2.

In this script 2, it’s defined/called like this:
[Parameter(Mandatory=$False)]
[string]$RDSL = @(“server1”,“server2”)
…
Execute-Script -Command 'powershell.exe -NonInteractive -NoProfile -File “\unc_path\Script1.ps1” -RDSL $RDSL
When executed like this, the script gets executed, but it parses the array as simple string (it seems) ‘server1 server2’ and the command that expects the array fails.

Any idea what am I doing wrong?

2

What is Execute-Script? What kind of script is this script2? Is this script2 able to “enumerate” Powershell arrays?

3

Sorry, missed the reply.
These are scripts that automate server deployment and configuration. There’s one master script that has parameters that are parsed to individual scripts using the Execute-Script function that executes scripts and checks exit values (defined in the individual scripts).

Function Execute-Script {
    Param(
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
    [string]$Command
    )

    $global:LASTEXITCODE = 10000

    #execute the command
    Write-Host -ForegroundColor Cyan "Running '$Command'"
    Invoke-Expression $Command
    if ($LASTEXITCODE -eq 0) {
        Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Command '$Command' SUCCESS"
        Write-Log -Message "Command '$Command' finished successfully" -Log $LogFile -Level INFO
    } else {
        write-host -ForegroundColor Red "Command '$Command' FAILED, check log"
        Write-Log -Message "Command '$Command' failed, exit code: $LASTEXITCODE" -Log $LogFile -Level ERROR
        Pause 
    }
}

master script (excerpt):

...
[Parameter(Mandatory=$False)]
[string[]]$RDSL = @("server1","server2"),
...
Execute-Script -Command 'powershell.exe -NonInteractive -NoProfile -File "\\fs\Scripts\script2.ps1" -ComputerName $ComputerName -RDSL $RDSL -RDGW $RDGW -RDCert $RDCert -RDCertPwd $RDCertPwd'
...

script2 (excerpt):

...
 [string[]]$RDSL,
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
...
Set-RDLicenseConfiguration -ConnectionBroker $ComputerFQDN -LicenseServer $RDSL -Mode PerUser -Force
#the above cmd then fails with the problem I described - from logging it seems it's flattened to string 'server1 server2'

Is it more clear now?

4

Anyone? Still trying to figure this one out.

5

You could do something like this in your string for command.

-RDSL @('$($rdsl -join ''',''')')

Or something like that. If you just did the $RDSL -join ‘,’ you would get the server1,server2 so it would work if there weren’t spaces in the names.

6

Hi. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work either:
Execute-Script : A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument ‘server1’,server2’.

Any other ideas?

7

I’ve fixed the script by defining the ‘array’ as simple string (separated by comma) in the master script and then converting it to an array in script2.

master script:

[Parameter(Mandatory=$False)]
[string]$RDSL = 'server1,server2'
...
Execute-Script -Command 'powershell.exe -NonInteractive -NoProfile -File "\\fs\Scripts\script2.ps1" -ComputerName $ComputerName -RDSL $RDSL -RDGW $RDGW -RDCert $RDCert -RDCertPwd $RDCertPwd'

script2:

...
 [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)
 [string]$RDSL
...
[string[]]$RDSLArr = $RDSL.Split(',')
Set-RDLicenseConfiguration -ConnectionBroker $ComputerFQDN -LicenseServer $RDSLArr -Mode PerUser -Force
8

If you want a parameter to accept an array of items, (like strings), you’ll need to specify it:

[string]$RDSL

should be:

[string[]]$RDSL

Specifying the $RDSL variable as just a string (and not a string array) will give you the error message you have reported.