Executing a command stored in a variable from PowerShell

Question

I have a command that I have build and stored in a variable in PowerShell. This command works if I do a Write-Host and copy and paste into a standard cmd.exe window.

How do I execute this command from inside my script?

I have tried several combination of Invoke-Command or Invoke-Expression with no luck.

This is how I built the variable:

$cmd1 = $arcprg + $arcdir + "\" + $site1 + "-" + $hst + "-" + $yesterday + ".zip " + $logpath1 + "u_ex" + $yesterday + ".log"

This is what the variable looks like if it is printed to the screen:

7z.exe a -tzip c:\arc_logs\site-host-at-web1-100827.zip c:\inetpub\logs\logfiles\w3svc1\u_ex100827.log

Answer 1

Here is yet another way without Invoke-Expression but with two variables (command:string and parameters:array). It works fine for me. Assume 7z.exe is in the system path.

$cmd = '7z.exe'
$prm = 'a', '-tzip', 'c:\temp\with space\test1.zip', 'C:\TEMP\with space\changelog'

& $cmd $prm

If the command is known (7z.exe) and only parameters are variable then this will do

$prm = 'a', '-tzip', 'c:\temp\with space\test1.zip', 'C:\TEMP\with space\changelog'

& 7z.exe $prm

BTW, Invoke-Expression with one parameter works for me, too, e.g. this works

$cmd = '& 7z.exe a -tzip "c:\temp\with space\test2.zip" "C:\TEMP\with space\changelog"'

Invoke-Expression $cmd

P.S. I usually prefer the way with a parameter array because it is easier to compose programmatically than to build an expression for Invoke-Expression.

Answer 2

Try invoking your command with Invoke-Expression:

Invoke-Expression $cmd1

Here is a working example on my machine:

$cmd = "& 'C:\Program Files\7-zip\7z.exe' a -tzip c:\temp\test.zip c:\temp\test.txt"
Invoke-Expression $cmd

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iex is an alias for Invoke-Expression so you could do:

iex $cmd1

For a full list : Visit https://ss64.com/ps/ for more Powershell stuff.

Good Luck...