I was working on a script recently to manage a particular process and wanted to make it generic by allowing the user to pass in a parameter. I have seen lots of examples, especially those that work with SQL Servers, using text files and other items as parameters, but in this case I wanted an easy, quick, command like parameter.

This post looks at what I chose to check parameters. I had a couple requirements.

• display message if no parameter is passed in.
• display some help if /? is passed in.

I know that my cmdlets should contain help from the PoSh command line, and I’ll get to that. For now, I’m managing things the way I was taught when I wrote C. A /? should get me help.

$Args

I did a little research on parameters and found a few things, but decided to use the $args variable. This is an array of undeclared parameters. I grab the first value (the only one I care about like this.

$instance = $args[0]

Note the [0]. As with many things in Computer Science, we’re zero based arrays.

I could allow for other parameters, but this gets me what I want.

Testing

The test for /? is easy. That’s like this:

if ($instance -eq "/?") {
  write-host "Please enter the instance you wish to detach all databases from as a parameter."
  }

If this is equal to my help request, write something out.

Next I needed to add another test. In this case I found that I could easily look for NULL variables, or blanks, with the !. As in this:

if (!$instance -or $instance -eq "/?") {
  write-host "Please enter the instance you wish to detach all databases from."
  }

That worked well and lets me remind myself if I’ve forgotten to pass in a parameter. The one thing I experimented a few times with was the OR clause. I tried these, none of which worked:

• if (!$instance OR $instance -eq "/?") {
• if (!$instance) or ($instance -eq "/?") {
  if (!$instance) -or ($instance -eq "/?") {

A little experimenting got me to remember that PoSh is fairly consistent, and the plain -or should work inside the parenthesis.

Everything Else

When I first ran this without a parameter, my script froze. That’s because I hit the IF clause, wrote out the message, and then executed.

Fortunately I’ve done this type of stupid programming before, so I added this:

if (!$instance -or $instance -eq "/?") {
  write-host "Please enter the instance you wish to detach all databases from."
  }
else {

The rest of my script fits in the else clause.

Reference

• Automatic Variables – https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh847768.aspx
• https://rkeithhill.wordpress.com/2007/01/06/checking-for-a-null-or-empty-string/

Filed under: Blog Tagged: powershell, syndicated