How to get back result as returned object type when executing script as PowerShell.exe -File

Question

If I have a script (script.ps1) like below:

$dir = Get-Item "C:\Windows"
$dir

and if I call it like:

$myDir = "script.ps1"

I get back the $dir object in $myDir and if I use:

$myDir.Name

I get:

Windows

I have a scenario where I need to call scripts using

$myDir = Powershell.exe -File "script.ps1"

With this, I end up getting the output in the form of a string array object and not in the form of the script-returned object as the command is apparently executed in a different session. Due to this, I can't call any property. Eg: $myDir.Name returns nothing

My question is, how do I get the returned object type back as the result in the above case. ie, even when I execute

$myDir = Powershell.exe -File "script.ps1"

$myDir.Name should return Windows . Is it even possible?

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

You could try like this :

script.ps1 (returns value of $dir ):

$dir = Get-Item "C:\Windows"
return $dir

script2.ps1 (returns name of $dir ) :

$myDir = .\script.ps1
$myDir.Name

$myDir.Name returns : Windows

Answer 2

You can use the -OutputFormat parameter of powershell.exe.

#Write the command to file
"get-item c:\windows\" | out-file C:\temp\test.ps1
$justastring = powershell.exe -file c:\temp\test.ps1
#this is a string array
$justastring | get-member
$notastring = powershell.exe -outputformat xml -file c:\temp\test.ps1
#this is a Deserialized.System.IO.DirectoryInfo
$notastring | get-member

This output is also able to be saved as a file and brought back in later. See Import-CliXml and Export-CliXml . Note that because they are serialized objects they are no longer "live". Some of the methods you are used to seeing will not be there, property values will no longer update either. Its essentially a snapshot of the command output at the instant that the command ran.