C# PowerShell - AddScript as multiple statements

Question

I am struggling to find a way to execute a multi-line and multi-statement PowerShell script in C# in such a way, that all the results will be available from the Invoke() method. It appears that the commands added by PowerShell.AddScript are always pipelined together . But I would like them to be read, parsed and executed as multiple statements with all of the results of the individual statements being written to the output .

Is that possible?

What I do now:

            using PowerShell powerShell = PowerShell.Create();
            powerShell.AddCommand("Set-ExecutionPolicy").AddArgument("Unrestricted").AddParameter("Scope", "CurrentUser").AddStatement();
            powerShell.AddScript(@"multiple powershell statements 
            on multiple rows, some of them writing to output"); //No intermediate results will be logged or printed as the script is added as a single pipeline
            powerShell.AddScript("$?"); //This is to echo the execution status of the last command into results
            var results = powerShell.Invoke();

The results collection contains only one result, and that is the echo of the last $? statement which I then query to find out pass/fail information. I also query Error stream but that is not relevant to the question.

The problem is: I receive the PowerShell script as a user input and therefore cannot modify it and add as statements. I was thinking about adding the script line by line, but it will break possible multiline pipelines, codeblocks etc. So to reach the result I want I would need to parse the script myself which sounds quite complex. Is there any elegant solution to receive all the results from Invoke() and most importantly, add a complex script from user input without it being crushed together as a single pipeline, feeding results of one command to another?

Answer 1

Simply use string concatenation to append the $? statement to the statements received, preceded by a ; (statement separator):

powerShell.AddScript(@"multiple powershell statements 
            on multiple rows, some of them writing to output" + ";$?");

That way, all statements are submitted as a single script [block] (piece of PowerShell code).

Successive .AddScript() calls aren't cumulative - the last one "wins".

Alternatively, append .AddStatement() to each .AddScript() call , analogously to how you're already doing for the .AddCommand() call that changes the execution policy.

However, it's more efficient to pass only a single piece of PowerShell code, using a single .AddScript() call , as shown above.

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Finally, the obligatory security warning :

I receive the PowerShell script as a user input

Unless you check and potentially sanitize the input first, only execute it if you trust the source.