PowerShell Pipeline or Input Argument

Question

I could not find an answer to this question anywhere.

How can a PowerShell script written in a file (as I understand, it cannot be a function in order to allow the pipelining directly to the script) be made to accept either pipeline input or a file input argument? The following criteria must be met:

either of which must be mandatory;
pipeline input is to be processed only after receiving all input into an array;
input argument is a file and the path must be validated;
a second optional argument specifies an output file.

The idea is to achieve a similar behavior to standard Linux commands as in cat file | <command> [-o out] or <command> -f file [-o out], in PowerShell being cat file | .\script.ps1 [-OutFile out] or .\script.ps1 -File file [-OutFile out].

See Joey's answer and you will understand the question.

dfernan
– dfernan

2016-09-30 13:06:35 +00:00
Commented Sep 30, 2016 at 13:06 — dfernan
– dfernan, Commented Sep 30, 2016 at 13:06

Joey · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-29 08:13:10Z

2

You could have a script like this:

param([string]$Path)

if (!Path) {
  $scriptInput = $input
} else {
  $scriptInput = Get-Content $Path
}

# Do something with $scriptInput

Checking for either pipeline input or an argument is left as an exercise for you.

answered Sep 29, 2016 at 8:13

Joey

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1 Comment

dfernan Over a year ago

This seems to work, but breaks (input object cannot be bound to any parameters...) when a second, optional argument is added and the pipeline method is used. I have edited my question to reflect the need for the second argument specifying an output file.

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