Why would I want to call a function that exists in a separate script?

Be careful with those parentheses. You don’t use parens to provide parameters to functions or cmdlets, only methods. Parens in the examples above are actually sub-expressions. Luckily, the sub-expression was just a string so it ended up doing what you had planned. Here’s how you can prove that it’s a sub-expression:

F1 (“test”) # output of the sub-expression is the string “test”
F1 ( 2+5 ) # output is the INT 7.
F1 ( dir ) # that would get incredibly messy

Unless you need sub-expressions, it’s best to leave off the parens. The below would just send the corresponding strings to the function.

F1 “test”
F1 “2+5″
F1 “dir”

I could not get the example to work either. I continually get the error is not recognized as a cmdlet, function, operable program or script file.

Any thoughts or ideas? This would be a great tool if I could get it to work.

Scripts work fine.
Really enjoying going through this, time to move on from DOS. Can’t wait for the later chapters!

Hi,
Ok,i solved the problem.. when not qualifying the full path the line is actually

.(space).\functions.ps1

I was reading it as .. (two dots in succession )

- thanks

If you wanted to take it one step further for a Functions library, you could put the file in the PSHome dir (usually “C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0″ or look at $PSHome) and then you would only have to use “. Functions.ps1″ w/o the quotes, of course, and don’t forget the space after the ‘.’ Hope that helps.

Yesm hte “. .” thing was stoping me to call the functions. Putting it this way will keep the context open and the functions will remain visible.
Thanks Benjy!

and thatnks for trying to explain to the author.

I would like to use dot sourcing to pull from a list of functions, but I would also like to be able to run the script with external parameters. Normally, functions have to be declared at the top of the script as does your Param() statement. These seem to compete with each other. The one that is at the top wins, the other is either ignored or produces an error.

So, If I wanted to pass a parameter into a script (I.E. .\test.ps1 -lanid dude123) how would I be able to use that and still dot source my functions?

. C:\MyScripts\Functions.ps1
Param($lanid)

Ok, I do have a question after all.

Is it possible to call a dot source file from a UNC?

Is there a way to loop through subfolders and call a script named run.ps1 from below each folder. I’m fairly new to powershell and can’t get this to work. As presently written it simply treats the file as a literal string, not really what I’m after.

I want to place a script and all supporting files in a subfolder and then loop through each subfolder and call run.ps1. This is what I presently do with CMD files, that way when I no longer need a module we just delete the folder. Similarly if I need to add a module I just drop in a new folder. I don’t want to edit the calling script, if I can avoid it.

Here’s what I have:

$list = Get-ChildItem C:\APPS\SCRIPTS -exclude maintenance.ps1 | Sort-Object Name

foreach ($i in $list)
{
Write-Host “Processing ” $i”…”
$sScript = [STRING]$i + “\run.ps1″
# this line works
.{c:\apps\scripts00_Critical\run.ps1}
# this line doesn’t work
.{$sScript}
}

Eric,
If you want functions available to every instance of Powershell.exe, I think you would have to put them your profile files or dot source them in your profile files. Type
help profile
in Powershell to learn about the profile files.

When i use the . method to include a script with functions all works fine until I run it with task scheduler (Server 2008 R2). All scripts then end with a 0×41306. Before I used the . to incldude functions the tasks worked fine. Running them directly is fine too.

That’s how I include my functions
. \\servername\scripts$\library.ps1

Do you have any idea how I can get this to work with the task scheduler?

Cheers
Joachim

I am trying to call another script responsible to send a mail. however, when I put ‘send email logic’ inside a function
it is not working or more precisely it is running but not receiving the email. when the send email logic is not in a function (just written in the script), it is actually working. here is the code

not working code
function send($from,$to)
{
try
{
$messageParameters = @{
smtpServer = “smtphost”
From = $from
To = $to
Subject = ”You Submitted a Job”
Body = ”You Job Chain is submitted successfully”
}
Send-MailMessage @messageParameters -BodyAsHtml
}
catch
{
write-host “======================================================================” -ForegroundColor green
write-host ‘sending email is failed’ -ForegroundColor green
write-host “======================================================================” -ForegroundColor green
}
}

and the working code is

try
{
$messageParameters = @{
smtpServer = “smtphost”
From = $from
To = $to
Subject = ”You Submitted a Job”
Body = ”You Job Chain is submitted successfully”
}
Send-MailMessage @messageParameters -BodyAsHtml
}
catch
{
write-host “======================================================================” -ForegroundColor green
write-host ‘sending email is failed’ -ForegroundColor green
write-host “======================================================================” -ForegroundColor green
}

Import-Module also allows to do this.

you ok paul i shouldnt give it out but here is there link
and details, they have 20% discount now,just say miss binaford said you would sort him out