I have read this answer stackoverflow answer and it get's me there half way. Here is what I need to do.
Execute this command:
"c:\myexe.exe <c:\Users\Me\myanswerfile.txt"
If I run that straight from within my powershell script
&'c:\myexe.exe <c:\Users\Me\myanswerfile.txt'
I get this error:
The term 'C:\myexe.exe <c:\Users\Me\myanswerfile.txt' is not recognized as the name of
a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name,or
if a path was included, verif that the path is correct and try again.
Now I have tried several variations of this including placing the original command in a variable called $cmd and then passing the
If I append the '<' to the $cmd variable the command fails with a similar error as the first one.
I'm stumped. Any suggestions?
If you want to run a program, just type its name and parameters:
notepad.exe C:\devmy\hi.txt
If you want to run an exe and redirect stdin to it which your example seems to be an attempt of, use:
Get-Content c:devmy\hi.txt | yourexe.exe
If you need to specify the full path to the program then you need to use ampersand and quotes otherwise powershell thinks you are defining a plain string:
&"C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\notepad++.exe"
Simply use & operator
& "Program\path\program.exe" "arg1" "arg2" ....
Related
I am writing a PowerShell script for a GitLab CICD pipeline that will deploy a file to our TEST box via FTP. This works by using a command to execute an FTP client (winSCP.exe) with a text file as input.
The basic code works, however I decided to replace the hardcoded values and paths with GitLab variables for greater security and to simplify changes. Most of the variable additions worked, but using a variable to replace the path to the FTP client failed - see below:
./$FTPCLIENTDIRECTORY : The term './$FTPCLIENTDIRECTORY' is not recognized as the name of a
cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path
was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
Right now this section of code works:
'./Resources/WinSCP.exe /log="$LOGFILEDIRECTORY" /ini=nul /script="$SCRIPTDIRECTORY" /parameter $FTPUSERNAME $FTPPASSWORD $FTPCERTIFICATE $FTPFILE'
I am trying to get something more like:
'./$FTPCLIENTDIRECTORY /log="$LOGFILEDIRECTORY" /ini=nul /script="$SCRIPTDIRECTORY" /parameter $FTPUSERNAME $FTPPASSWORD $FTPCERTIFICATE $FTPFILE'
I'm guessing that the ./ here operates as some kind of escape sequence that prevents YAML from recognizing the variable, however nothing none of the YAML or PowerShell escape characters I've used to escape-the-escape characters have worked.
Do you have any insight into why this is happening and or what a solution might be?
My goal is to have an alias to run a command with -o at the end.
PS C:\Users\XXXX> vlab -o <various different arguments>
I have tried to setup an alias, but Set-Alias recognizes -o as a parameter Option, and
placing it in single or double quotes fails
> set-alias vlab 'vlab -o'
> vlab
vlab : The term 'vlab -o' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program.
also setup a profile.ps1 with a function, but this just hangs when I run it.
Function VlabSpeed {
vlab -o
}
Set-Alias vlab VlabSpeed
Is it possible to set an alias like this?
if so, how?
Thanks
To recap:
PowerShell aliases can only map a name to another command name or executable file path - unlike in, say, Bash, defining arguments as part of the mapping is not supported.
To incorporate arguments, you indeed need a function rather than an alias:
Inside that function, you can use #args to pass any arguments through to another command, as Santiago Squarzon points out.
There is no need for both an alias and a function - just name your function directly as the short name you desire.
If your short (function) name is the same as the file name of the external program that it wraps, you need to disambiguate the two to avoid infinite recursion:
On Windows:
Use the external program's filename extension, typically .exe:
function vlab { vlab.exe -o #args }
On Unix-like platforms:
Given that executables there (typically) have no filename extension, use the full path to disambiguate:
function vlab { /path/to/vlab -o #args }
I want to invoke the shutdown.exe executable in powershell and it is located on C:\WINDOWS\System32\shutdown.exe.
Since we already got the C:\WINDOWS in the variable $env:windir I want to just use it and concatenate the rest of the path into the command. I was trying this:
PS C:\Users\shina> .\$env:windir\System32\shutdown.exe -s
But I got the following error:
.\$env:windir\System32\shutdown.exe: The term '.\$env:windir\System32\shutdown.exe' is not recognized as a name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or executable program.
Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
How can I accomplish this?
You can use:
& $env:windir\System32\shutdown.exe -s
Or
. $env:windir\System32\shutdown.exe -s
(note the space).
& is the call operator. You can read more about it here:
Runs a command, script, or script block. The call operator, also known as the "invocation operator", lets you run commands that are stored in variables and represented by strings or script blocks.
. is the dot sourcing operator. You can read more about it here:
Runs a script in the current scope so that any functions, aliases, and variables that the script creates are added to the current scope, overriding existing ones.
The dot sourcing operator is followed by a space. Use the space to distinguish the dot from the dot (.) symbol that represents the current directory.
Ultimately, I want to be able to call my PS script from VBA (Excel), but the easiest way to do that seems to be with system batch commands - so I'm testing my script with a BAT file.
The script returns a text file with the contents of a webpage, sans HTML tags. It works fine called alone with default parameters; it worked fine with no spaces in the output path parameter, but I've had no luck using a path that includes a space.
PS1 script, boiled down:
param ( [string]$outputPathName="" )
$outputPathName | Out-File "D:\Documents\Google Drive\out.txt"
BAT file to test it:
powershell.exe '"D:\Documents\Google Drive\GetWebPage.ps1"' -outputPathName '"D:\Documents\Google Drive\out.txt"'
I get the error message "Unexpected token '-outputPathName' in expression or statement." (I also get a similar error for the argument, but if the parameter name were recognized I might be able to get past this.)
How can I pass a named argument in from BAT script file to PS1 script file (with spaces in the path and argument)?
I am doing a batch scripting assignment where I have to call one script from inside another. I need the script to run the second script no matter where my lecturer saves these scripts. How would I do this. Is there some way to find the path of script inside the script and use that to execute the file. Any help would be great. I think I need to use %'s but i'm not sure.
The name of the script is Hello World.bat.
How would I copy Hello World.bat to the C:\ if I don't know which directory the lecturer has placed it in. what command/s would I use so that the copy would work regardless of the scripts location.
I don't see the "DOS" tag, but I'll assume that it is for now. If you want the entire path, you can get it by doing this:
echo %cd%
If you want just the last folder, this works (inside a .bat file):
for %%* in (.) do #echo %%~n*
Note that from the command line, the above command will work with single %'s:
for %* in (.) do #echo %~n*
If the script you are executing is calling other scripts in the SAME folder location, you can prefix the path statement with "%~dp0" or "%~dps0" but do not put a backslash between that and the name of the script you are calling. In other words, if script1.bat is calling script2.bat in the same folder, the statement in script1.bat would refer to "%~dp0script2.bat"
sorry about batch files, am not familiar, but in nix shell, there is the locate command which can return the path of the file , if you know the filename exactly and the name is unique.
like
name=$(locate filname)