Catch exitcode from EXE

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to catch errorlevel/exitcode from a executable, both return 0. I don't understand why.

The folder "d:\Temp\exists\" exists.

$rar="c:\Program Files\WinRAR\Rar.exe"
$archive1="TMP.rar"
$argList = @("a", ('"'+$archive1+'"'), ("d:\Temp\exists\"))
Start-Process -FilePath $rar -ArgumentList $argList -Wait #-NoNewWindow
$LASTEXITCODE

The folder "d:\Temp\exists\" does NOT exists.

$rar="c:\Program Files\WinRAR\Rar.exe"
$archive1="TMP.rar"
$argList = @("a", ('"'+$archive1+'"'), ("d:\Temp\doesNOTexists\"))
Start-Process -FilePath $rar -ArgumentList $argList -Wait #-NoNewWindow
$LASTEXITCODE

Answer 1

While you used the "-Wait" switch you haven't used the "-Passthru" switch and you haven't kept the process object returned by the Start-Process cmdlet. See this link: obtaining-exitcode-using-start-process-and-waitforexit-instead-of-wait

When the process ends, check the "ExitCode" property of the process object.

Answer 2

Thanks for the input.
After some inspiration from the link you provided I went for this solution.

function rar_update([String] $archive1, [String] $list1, $varName) {
& "c:\Program Files\WinRAR\Rar.exe" a "$archive1" "$list1"
Set-Variable -Name $varName -Value $LASTEXITCODE -Scope Global
}

rar_update "Path/Backup.rar" "@mutia keyza /Backup.lst" "r_error1"
if (($r_error1 -ne 0) ... #if not 0 handle it as an error