about_Functions_Advanced
Short description
Introduces advanced functions that are a way to create cmdlets using scripts.
Long description
A cmdlet is a single command that participates in the pipeline semantics of PowerShell. This includes binary cmdlets, advanced script functions, CDXML, and Workflows.
Advanced functions allow you create cmdlets that are written as a PowerShell function. Advanced functions make it easier to create cmdlets without having to write and compile a binary cmdlet. Binary cmdlets are .NET classes that are written in a .NET language such as C#.
Advanced functions use the CmdletBinding
attribute to identify them as
functions that act like cmdlets. The CmdletBinding
attribute is similar to
the Cmdlet attribute that's used in compiled cmdlet classes to identify the
class as a cmdlet. For more information about this attribute, see
about_Functions_CmdletBindingAttribute.
The following example shows a function that accepts a name and then prints a greeting using the supplied name. Also notice that this function defines a name that includes a verb (Send) and noun (Greeting) pair like the verb-noun pair of a compiled cmdlet. However, functions aren't required to have a verb-noun name.
function Send-Greeting
{
[CmdletBinding()]
Param(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
[string] $Name
)
Process
{
Write-Host ("Hello " + $Name + "!")
}
}
The parameters of the function are declared using the Parameter
attribute.
This attribute can be used alone, or it can be combined with the Alias
attribute or with several other parameter validation attributes. For more
information about how to declare parameters (including dynamic parameters that
are added at runtime), see about_Functions_Advanced_Parameters.
The actual work of the previous function is performed in the process
block,
which is equivalent to the ProcessingRecord method that's used by compiled
cmdlets to process the data that's passed to the cmdlet. This block, along with
the begin
and end
blocks, is described in the
about_Functions_Advanced_Methods topic.
Advanced functions differ from compiled cmdlets in the following ways:
- Advanced function parameter binding doesn't throw an exception when an array of strings is bound to a Boolean parameter.
- The
ValidateSet
attribute and theValidatePattern
attribute can't pass named parameters. - Advanced functions can't be used in transactions.
See also
PowerShell