Powershell loop iteration count - powershell

Question

The purpose of the scripts is to catch wrong logins to Elasticsearch, and gave the opportunity to retry entering a password. The idea was to count loop iteration by adding i++ after $result = Invoke-RestMethod $uri -Credential $credential step, but it turned out that -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue process is ignored in case it's located in try{} section, so i moved loop counts into finally {$i++} section, but the cons is that the last Attempt 5 does not pass the condition while ($i -lt 6) cuz it is 5+1 in finally {$i++} section.
$elasticsearch_pass = Read-Host "Enter ELASTICSEARCH password"
$uri = "https://${elasticsearch_ip}:9200"
$user = "static_user"
$i = 1
while ($i -lt 6) {
try {
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Cyan `n ("Trying to connect to elasticsearch. Attempt $i")
$secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString $elasticsearch_pass -AsPlainText -Force
$credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($user, $secpasswd)
$result = Invoke-RestMethod $uri -Credential $credential
if ($result.tagline -eq 'You Know, for Search') {
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green `n ("Connection to elasticsearch {0} established..." -f $elasticsearch_ip)
break
}
}
catch {
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red $_
if ("$_" -eq "Unauthorized") {
$elasticsearch_pass = Read-Host `n "Wrong elasticsearch password! Pls enter correct one"
}
}
finally {$i++}
}
What is the best approach to set a static loop iteration count and execute the last Attempt?

Answer 1

Why use While, if an interation var is needed the usual solution is a traditional for:
$uri = "https://${elasticsearch_ip}:9200"
$user = "static_user"
$i = 1
$maxTry = 5
For( $i = 1; $i -le $maxTry; ++$i )
{
try {
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Cyan `n ("Trying to connect to elasticsearch. Attempt $i of $maxtry ")
$secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString $elasticsearch_pass -AsPlainText -Force
$credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential($user, $secpasswd)
$result = Invoke-RestMethod $uri -Credential $credential
if ($result.tagline -eq 'You Know, for Search') {
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green `n ("Connection to elasticsearch {0} established..." -f $elasticsearch_ip)
break
}
}
Catch {
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red $_.Exception.Message
if ($_.Exception.Message -match "Unauthorized") {
}
}
}
In either case I don't think you need to do the ++$i in the finally block, you could just do in the catch and continue. However the for loop allows you to do it at the right point in each iteration without the confusion.
Also added $maxTry gives a slightly better echo...
Since this is interactive I changed some of the catch block to echo a little more cleanly.
Also moved the Read-Host into the loop. and changed the language a little. though there are a couple of ways to do that...