Powershell Megathread: Verb-Noun Scripting is the future

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Powershell Megathread: Verb-Noun Scripting is the future

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Jelmylicious: Dec 6, 2007; Buy Dr. Quack's miracle juice! Now with patented H-twenty!

Swink posted:

How can I validate user input? I have a script that creates AD users, and I need to specify the users' location. There are four options, how can I ensure I dont misspell the city when I'm typing it in? Is there any way I could choose from a list of options rather than having to type?

With parameters, you couldt use a validateset:

code:

param
    (
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
    [validateset("Mars","Mordor","Sodom","Gomorra")]
    [string]$City
    )

If you use interactive input, you could either check the statement with if statements:

code:

if ("Mars","Mordor","Sodom","Gomorra" -eq $city) {write-host "Wow! you can type correctly!"}

For this to validate, you need the list of correct cities on the left hand side, making the statement: "If any of these match". Note also that this isn't case sensitive. You could use a switch statement:

code:

$Choice = Read-Host "Select 1 for Mars, 2 for Mordor, 3 for Sodom, 4 for Gomorra"
Switch ($Choice)
     {
     1 {$City = "Mars"}
     2 {$City = "Mordor"}
     3 {$City = "Sodom"}
     4 {$City = "Gomorra"}
     }

VVV Indeed, you can do fun things with validation. You could ensure the $Max is always bigger than $Min by using a validate expression, for instance. VVV

Jelmylicious fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Jun 27, 2012

# ¿ Jun 27, 2012 06:22

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 16:04

Jelmylicious: Dec 6, 2007; Buy Dr. Quack's miracle juice! Now with patented H-twenty!

Just to explain what Mario is saying here: Single quotes take everything as written, while double quotes interpret everything written. Backticks make thing that would be interpreted literal again. To illustrate:

code:

PS C:\> $var = 5
PS C:\> "$var"
5
PS C:\> '$var'
$var
PS C:\> "`$var"
$var
PS C:\> '`$var'
`$var

Notice in the last one that the backtick is also simply written out.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2012 05:35

Jelmylicious: Dec 6, 2007; Buy Dr. Quack's miracle juice! Now with patented H-twenty!

I believe that if you have an array and the next command accepts an array as input, it will just pass it as one thing. Not sure though.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2012 17:03

Jelmylicious: Dec 6, 2007; Buy Dr. Quack's miracle juice! Now with patented H-twenty!

Didn't really look over your code, but your += is definitely in the wrong place. The following statements are the same:

code:

$a = $a + $b 
$a += $b

+= is just a shortcut for: add something to my variable and make that the new variable.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2012 21:49

Jelmylicious: Dec 6, 2007; Buy Dr. Quack's miracle juice! Now with patented H-twenty!

Then just sort the list you have:

code:

$users | sort surname | select-object givenname, surname

Or, make your list sorted after you filled it, so it will stay sorted:

code:

$users = $users | sort surname

# ¿ Dec 17, 2012 14:32

Jelmylicious: Dec 6, 2007; Buy Dr. Quack's miracle juice! Now with patented H-twenty!

An easy place to start, to get a good feel for how powershell starts, is Don's youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/powershelldon
This is from the same author as the month of lunches book. This might help you get a good grip on the quirks that are specific to powershell. If you only watch one video, use this deep-dive (warning, it is 4 hours long) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ya1dQ1Igkc

# ¿ Dec 20, 2012 09:27

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 16:04

Jelmylicious: Dec 6, 2007; Buy Dr. Quack's miracle juice! Now with patented H-twenty!

If you just put c:\script.ps1 in the task scheduler, it will execute it with the default associationg for ps1. So, your server will be very happy to oblige and just open notepad for you. Make sure you add powershell -file 'c:\script.ps1' to have it actually execute. Also, don't forget to put plenty of logging in the script, since you won't be monitoring it.

See this for an example task: http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscrip...ell-script.aspx

# ¿ Jan 17, 2013 18:12

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Powershell Megathread: Verb-Noun Scripting is the future

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