How to store Powershell output to a variable?

Question

I'm validating a markdown using Powershell script and I use below command line

markdownlint.cmd "c:\index.md"

And it returns output like below

levels should only increment by one level at a time [Expected: h2; Actual: h3]

index.md: 4: MD003/heading-style/header-style Heading style 
[Expected: setext; Actual: atx]

I want to export the output log to a variable, in which I'd like to test like

if( $output -contains '*Expected*')
{

Write-Host "contains errors"
}

Unfortunately I'm unable to export to a variable within code, How can I do it?

Options I tried

$output = Invoke-Expression "markdownlint.cmd 'c:\index.md' "

    markdownlint.cmd 'c:\index.md' | Export-csv c:\test.csv

This did not work.

Note: markdownlint.cmd is CMD line Env.

score 3 · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-24 19:26:18Z

3

Simply enclose your batch command and args in parentheses

$output = (markdownlint.cmd "c:\index.md")

if( $output -match 'Expected') { 
    Write-Host "contains errors" 
}

Single quotes have no special meaning in cmd.exe,

so markdownlint.cmd 'c:\index.md' fails because it looks for them literally.

edited Apr 24, 2019 at 19:26

answered Apr 24, 2019 at 9:22

user6811411

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2 Comments

Abraham Dhanyaraju Arumbaka Over a year ago

Thanks. Unfortunately nothings gets assigned to $output. This is my code . ``` npm install -g markdownlint-cli $output = (markdownlint.cmd "C:\index.md") Write-Host $output if( $output -contains 'Expected') { Write-Host "contains errors" } ```

user6811411 Over a year ago

You are using the wrong comparison operator, -contains checks if the array $output has an exact entry Expected, use RegEx based -match instead. Read online

TudorIftimie · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-24 08:22:11Z

0

Export-csv is a combination of two commands: convertTo-csv piped to out-file.

The markdownlint.cmd "c:\index.md" is probably not producing a powershell object as output. From Get-Help ConvertTo-Csv -Full I can see ConvertTo-csv requires as input a powershell object:

 SYNTAX
ConvertTo-Csv [-InputObject] <PSObject> [[-Delimiter] <Char>] [-NoTypeInformation] [<CommonParameters>]

ConvertTo-Csv [-InputObject] <PSObject> [-NoTypeInformation] [-UseCulture] [<CommonParameters>]

You can use the

markdownlint.cmd 'c:\index.md' | out-file 'c:\textfile.txt'

and then examine the file content and see how you can parse or convert it.

answered Apr 24, 2019 at 8:22

TudorIftimie

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1 Comment

Abraham Dhanyaraju Arumbaka Over a year ago

@lftimie - It wont anything export to file . i want to write the data to a variable within.

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