Process Block and a foreach within

PowerShell Help
1

Can anyone advise why?

Lets say i create an Advanced function that accepts pipeline input for computers…
Within the process block i have a foreach which iterates over the computers…

If process will loop for each computer, then in my mind the foreach will also loop twice per pass.

How does powershell know not to loop four times…

Watching Jeffery Snover on the Advanced functions MVA course and i am scratching my head… if anyone can explain i would be very thankful.

Chris

2

here is an example

function Get-ServiceState
{
[CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess=$true)]

Param
(
    # Param1 help description
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true, 
               ValueFromPipeline=$true,
               ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true, 
               Position=0)]
    [Alias("sv")] 
    [String[]]$Service
)

Begin
{
    Write-host "Setting Up"
}
Process
{
   
        write-host $Service
   
}
End
{
}

}

passing variables like this
$records = @(‘BITS’,‘Browser’)
$records | get-servicestate

produces a very different output to

get-servicestate -Service Bits,Browser

What is the best way to deal with these two methods to achieve the same thing?

I assume using foreach ($s in $Service) { }

Thanks for your help

3

When you pipe a collection of objects to the function, the Process block runs once for each of the objects. When you pass the collection by parameter, the process block runs one time for the whole collection.

You could do something like this:

Function Write-CoolMessage
{
    [CmdletBinding()]

    Param
    (
        [Parameter( ValueFromPipeline )]
        [String[]]
            $Message
    )

    Process
    {
        $Message | ForEach-Object {
            Write-Host "COOL: $_" -ForegroundColor "Green"
        }
    }
}

The following commands will return the same result:

"Message1", "Message2" | Write-CoolMessage
Write-CoolMessage -Message "Message1", "Message2"
4

Sir,

You are an absolute star… I understood that the process ran for each entry passed, but for the life of me i couldn’t figure out how to run the foreach once and deal with both types of input…

Your solution is exactly what i needed to understand how to deal with these two scenarios…

Thank you ever so much…

Chris