How to convert powershell exe calls to YAML for git CI/CD - powershell

Question

I am having difficulty understanding the syntax of yaml. I want to convert the below power shell commands for restoring nuget packages and building visual studio solution to yaml. I am not able to get it correct, pls help.
PowerShell Commnds:
$ProjectPath = "e:\GitExperiment\SGen"
Set-Location $ProjectPath
$MSBuildPath = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft VisualStudio\2019\BuildTools\MSBuild\Current\Bin"
$NugetExePath = "C:\Program Files (x86)\NuGet\nuget.exe"
& $NugetExePath restore $ProjectPath\SGen.sln
& $MSBuildPath\MSBuild.exe $ProjectPath\SGen.sln /t:Build /p:Configuration=Release /p:TargetFramework=v4.7.2 /p:SkipPostSharp=True /p:RunCodeAnalysis=False
YAML
stages:
- BUILD
- UNITTEST
- DEPLOY
BUILD_RestoreNugetPackages:
script:
- '$ProjectPath = e:\GitExperiment\SGen"'
- 'Set-Location $ProjectPath'
- '$MSBuildPath = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\BuildTools\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe"'
- '$NugetExePath = "C:\Program Files (x86)\NuGet\nuget.exe"'
- '"$NugetExePath restore $ProjectPath\SGen.sln"'
stage: BUILD
tags:
- ci
BUILD_SolutionBuild:
script:
- "& $MSBuildPath $ProjectPath\\SGen.sln /t:Build /p:Configuration=Release /p:TargetFramework=v4.7.2 /p:SkipPostSharp=True /p:RunCodeAnalysis=False"
stage: BUILD
tags:
- ci
I tried using quotes and double quotes and escaping characters in yaml. But couldn't get the commands right.
Please help.

Answer 1

While a gitlab-ci runner does support Powershell, I would rather:
put those commands in a script (versioned with the rest of the sources)
call that script from your YAML directives
powershell -noprofile -noninteractive -executionpolicy Bypass -file my-script.ps1
That way, you don't have to deal with trying to escape any special characters.