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Chapter 6 - Flow control

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Scripting

When you move from writing PowerShell one-liners to writing scripts, it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. A script is nothing more than the same or similar commands that you would run interactively in the PowerShell console, except they're saved as a .PS1 file. There are some scripting constructs that you may use such as a foreach loop instead of the ForEach-Object cmdlet. To beginners, the differences can be confusing especially when you consider that foreach is both a scripting construct and an alias for the ForEach-Object cmdlet.

Looping

One of the great things about PowerShell is, once you figure out how to do something for one item, it's almost as easy to do the same task for hundreds of items. Simply loop through the items using one of the many different types of loops in PowerShell.

ForEach-Object

ForEach-Object is a cmdlet for iterating through items in a pipeline such as with PowerShell one-liners. ForEach-Object streams the objects through the pipeline.

Although the Module parameter of Get-Command accepts multiple values that are strings, it only accepts them via pipeline input by property name or via parameter input. In the following scenario, if I want to pipe two strings by value to Get-Command for use with the Module parameter, I would need to use the ForEach-Object cmdlet.

'ActiveDirectory', 'SQLServer' |
   ForEach-Object {Get-Command -Module $_} |
     Group-Object -Property ModuleName -NoElement |
         Sort-Object -Property Count -Descending

Count Name
----- ----
  147 ActiveDirectory
   82 SqlServer

In the previous example, $_ is the current object. Beginning with PowerShell version 3.0, $PSItem can be used instead of $_. But I find that most experienced PowerShell users still prefer using $_ since it's backward compatible and less to type.

When using the foreach keyword, you must store all of the items in memory before iterating through them, which could be difficult if you don't know how many items you're working with.

$ComputerName = 'DC01', 'WEB01'
foreach ($Computer in $ComputerName) {
  Get-ADComputer -Identity $Computer
}

DistinguishedName : CN=DC01,OU=Domain Controllers,DC=mikefrobbins,DC=com
DNSHostName       : dc01.mikefrobbins.com
Enabled           : True
Name              : DC01
ObjectClass       : computer
ObjectGUID        : c38da20c-a484-469d-ba4c-bab3fb71ae8e
SamAccountName    : DC01$
SID               : S-1-5-21-2989741381-570885089-3319121794-1001
UserPrincipalName :

DistinguishedName : CN=WEB01,CN=Computers,DC=mikefrobbins,DC=com
DNSHostName       : web01.mikefrobbins.com
Enabled           : True
Name              : WEB01
ObjectClass       : computer
ObjectGUID        : 33aa530e-1e31-40d8-8c78-76a18b673c33
SamAccountName    : WEB01$
SID               : S-1-5-21-2989741381-570885089-3319121794-1107
UserPrincipalName :

Many times a loop such as foreach or ForEach-Object is necessary. Otherwise you'll receive an error message.

Get-ADComputer -Identity 'DC01', 'WEB01'

Get-ADComputer : Cannot convert 'System.Object[]' to the type
'Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.ADComputer' required by parameter 'Identity'.
Specified method is not supported.
At line:1 char:26
+ Get-ADComputer -Identity 'DC01', 'WEB01'
+                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Get-ADComputer], ParameterBindingExc
   eption
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CannotConvertArgument,Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management
   .Commands.GetADComputer

Other times, you can get the same results while eliminating the loop altogether. Consult the cmdlet help to understand your options.

'DC01', 'WEB01' | Get-ADComputer

DistinguishedName : CN=DC01,OU=Domain Controllers,DC=mikefrobbins,DC=com
DNSHostName       : dc01.mikefrobbins.com
Enabled           : True
Name              : DC01
ObjectClass       : computer
ObjectGUID        : c38da20c-a484-469d-ba4c-bab3fb71ae8e
SamAccountName    : DC01$
SID               : S-1-5-21-2989741381-570885089-3319121794-1001
UserPrincipalName :

DistinguishedName : CN=WEB01,CN=Computers,DC=mikefrobbins,DC=com
DNSHostName       : web01.mikefrobbins.com
Enabled           : True
Name              : WEB01
ObjectClass       : computer
ObjectGUID        : 33aa530e-1e31-40d8-8c78-76a18b673c33
SamAccountName    : WEB01$
SID               : S-1-5-21-2989741381-570885089-3319121794-1107
UserPrincipalName :

As you can see in the previous examples, the Identity parameter for Get-ADComputer only accepts a single value when provided via parameter input, but it allows for multiple items when the input is provided via pipeline input.

For

A for loop iterates while a specified condition is true. The for loop is not something that I use often, but it does have its uses.

for ($i = 1; $i -lt 5; $i++) {
  Write-Output "Sleeping for $i seconds"
  Start-Sleep -Seconds $i
}

Sleeping for 1 seconds
Sleeping for 2 seconds
Sleeping for 3 seconds
Sleeping for 4 seconds

In the previous example, the loop will iterate four times by starting off with the number one and continue as long as the counter variable $i is less than 5. It will sleep for a total of 10 seconds.

Do

There are two different do loops in PowerShell. Do Until runs while the specified condition is false.

$number = Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 10
do {
  $guess = Read-Host -Prompt "What's your guess?"
  if ($guess -lt $number) {
    Write-Output 'Too low!'
  }
  elseif ($guess -gt $number) {
    Write-Output 'Too high!'
  }
}
until ($guess -eq $number)

What's your guess?: 1
Too low!
What's your guess?: 2
Too low!
What's your guess?: 3

The previous example is a numbers game that continues until the value you guess equals the same number that the Get-Random cmdlet generated.

Do While is just the opposite. It runs as long as the specified condition evaluates to true.

$number = Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 10
do {
  $guess = Read-Host -Prompt "What's your guess?"
  if ($guess -lt $number) {
    Write-Output 'Too low!'
  } elseif ($guess -gt $number) {
    Write-Output 'Too high!'
  }
}
while ($guess -ne $number)

What's your guess?: 1
Too low!
What's your guess?: 2
Too low!
What's your guess?: 3
Too low!
What's your guess?: 4

The same results are achieved with a Do While loop by reversing the test condition to not equals.

Do loops always run at least once because the condition is evaluated at the end of the loop.

While

Similar to the Do While loop, a While loop runs as long as the specified condition is true. The difference however, is that a While loop evaluates the condition at the top of the loop before any code is run. So it doesn't run if the condition evaluates to false.

$date = Get-Date -Date 'November 22'
while ($date.DayOfWeek -ne 'Thursday') {
  $date = $date.AddDays(1)
}
Write-Output $date

Thursday, November 23, 2017 12:00:00 AM

The previous example calculates what day Thanksgiving Day is on in the United States. It's always on the fourth Thursday of November. So the loop starts with the 22nd day of November and adds a day while the day of the week isn't equal to Thursday. If the 22nd is a Thursday, the loop doesn't run at all.

Break, Continue, and Return

Break is designed to break out of a loop. It's also commonly used with the switch statement.

for ($i = 1; $i -lt 5; $i++) {
  Write-Output "Sleeping for $i seconds"
  Start-Sleep -Seconds $i
  break
}

Sleeping for 1 seconds

The break statement shown in the previous example causes the loop to exit on the first iteration.

Continue is designed to skip to the next iteration of a loop.

while ($i -lt 5) {
  $i += 1
  if ($i -eq 3) {
    continue
  }
  Write-Output $i
}

1
2
4
5

The previous example will output the numbers 1, 2, 4, and 5. It skips number 3 and continues with the next iteration of the loop. Similar to break, continue breaks out of the loop except only for the current iteration. Execution continues with the next iteration instead of breaking out of the loop and stopping.

Return is designed to exit out of the existing scope.

$number = 1..10
foreach ($n in $number) {
  if ($n -ge 4) {
    Return $n
  }
}

4

Notice that in the previous example, return outputs the first result and then exits out of the loop. A more thorough explanation of the result statement can be found in one of my blog articles: "The PowerShell return keyword".

Summary

In this chapter, you've learned about the different types of loops that exist in PowerShell.

Review

  1. What is the difference in the ForEach-Object cmdlet and the foreach scripting construct?
  2. What is the primary advantage of using a While loop instead of a Do While or Do Until loop.
  3. How do the break and continue statements differ?