Calling a powershell script from Batch scripting

Question

I need a way to be able to have a batch script exit and write to a log file if a powershell script fails for any reason.

Right now I have something similar to this:

SET DBSCRIPT=C:\Scripts\UpdateAppDB.ps1
IF EXISTS %DBSCRIPT% (
    POWERSHELL -Command %DBSCRIPT%
) ELSE (
    ECHO "Script not found." >> C:\TestResults\TestLog.txt`
    EXIT
)

Is there any way to handle errors that might occur during the running of the powershell?

Does POWERSHELL set an errorlevel that you can test for? if errorlevel 1 goto BAD. That might require you to CALL POWERSHELL if it doesn't otherwise return. — Weather Vane
– Weather Vane, Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 18:17
It doesn't, but if it's impossible to do something like a try>catch in batch I can modify the powershell to throw an exit code or something. — Sean Long
– Sean Long, Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 18:21
@SeanLong Yes, your script should exit with an appropriate status code. Batch doesn't have exception handling. It can only react on what the external command returned. — Ansgar Wiechers
– Ansgar Wiechers, Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 18:23

Ansgar Wiechers · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-06 11:57:56Z

2

The PowerShell command should return with an exit code >0 in case of an error. You can handle that like this:

set "DBSCRIPT=C:\Scripts\UpdateAppDB.ps1"
if exists %DBSCRIPT% (
    powershell -Command %DBSCRIPT% || (
      rem Error handling routines here
    )
) else (
    echo "Script not found." >> C:\TestResults\TestLog.txt
    exit
)

or like this (requires delayed expansion enabled):

setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion

set "DBSCRIPT=C:\Scripts\UpdateAppDB.ps1"
if exists %DBSCRIPT% (
    powershell -Command %DBSCRIPT%
    if !errorlevel! neq 0 (
      rem Error handling routines here
    )
) else (
    echo "Script not found." >> C:\TestResults\TestLog.txt
    exit
)

As a side note: since you want to run a PowerShell script I'd use powershell -File "%DBSCRIPT%" instead of powershell -Command "%DBSCRIPT%". The double quotes around the variable take care of potential spaces in the path.

Edit: To be clear, the above code only handles non-zero return codes from either the PowerShell executable or the PowerShell script. It does not (and cannot) replace error handling inside the PowerShell script. If you want the PowerShell script to terminate on all errors (and indicate the error status with a non-zero exit code) you'll need at least something like this in the PowerShell script:

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
try {
  # ...
  # rest of your code here
  # ...
} catch {
  Write-Error $_
  exit 1
}

edited Nov 6, 2014 at 11:57

answered Nov 5, 2014 at 18:20

Ansgar Wiechers

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2 Comments

aphoria Over a year ago

I think ERRORLEVEL here will represent what PowerShell itself returned, not what the PowerShell script did. As long as PowerShell starts up and attempts to run the script file, ERRORLEVEL is going to be 0 regardless of any errors in the script.

Ansgar Wiechers Over a year ago

Correct. Batch can't replace error handling inside the PowerShell script. It can only react to what the script returns.

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