How can I send command-line parameters to a program called from a PowerShell script?

Question

As I'm sure you will be aware after reading this question, I'm brand new to PowerShell.

I want to back up a PostgreSQL database every day automatically using the Windows task scheduler. The backup file needs to include the current date. I created a file named db_backup.bat and run it within the Task Scheduler. Here it is, broken into several lines for readability:

"C:/Program Files (x86)/PostgreSQL/9.3/bin\pg_dump.exe" 
--host localhost --port 5432 --username "postgres" 
--no-password  --format custom --verbose 
--file "c:/misc/restore_test_%DATE:~10,4%%DATE:~4,2%%DATE:~7,2%.backup" "Restore Test"

I hate the need to format the date like this. PowerShell has much cleaner ways to extract date information, so I'd like to do this from a PowerShell script.

So I created db_backup.ps1, containing this:

"C:/Program Files (x86)/PostgreSQL/9.3/bin/pg_dump.exe" --host localhost --port 5432 
--username postgres --no-password  --format custom --verbose 
--file "c:/misc/restore_test.backup" "Restore Test" >> c:/misc/restore.txt

When I run this from Powershell, I get an error complaining about an unexpected token named --host. PS thinks "host" is a parameter for PowerShell, but it's supposed to be a parameter for the pg_dump program.

I tried wrapping all of the pg_dump parameters into a single string, but then PS thinks the entire string is a parameter for itself instead of passing it as a parameter to pg_dump.

So, how do I send command-line parameters to pg_dump?

See this for running an executable from PowerShell with arguments. • PowerShell: Running Executables — postanote
– postanote, Commented Mar 5, 2021 at 17:26
No worries. I see this kind of question a lot on several PowerShell community sites/forums followed. There are a few more articles like that one. — postanote
– postanote, Commented Mar 5, 2021 at 19:43
Could you post your solution as an answer to this question? It would increase the value of the question. I am new to powershell too, but the link above doesn't ring a bell to me :( — Chau
– Chau, Commented Apr 26, 2022 at 9:06

mirkw00d · Accepted Answer · 2024-04-16 13:09:16Z

0

Here is how I do it in my ps1 script to have backups in the format postgres_yyyymmdd.backup:

# Set the path to pg_dump.exe
$pgPath = "C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Programs\pgAdmin 4\runtime\"

# Set other parameters
$pgHost = "127.0.0.1"
$port = "5432"
$username = "postgres"
$database = "test_db"
$encoding = "UTF-8"
$currentDate = Get-Date -Format "yyyyMMdd"
$outputFile = "C:\backups\postgres_$currentDate.backup"

# Run the command
cd $pgPath
.\pg_dump.exe --file $outputFile --host $pgHost --port $port --username         $username --no-password --format=c --encoding $encoding --schema-only --verbose $database

answered Apr 16, 2024 at 13:09

mirkw00d

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