Understanding $args in PowerShell
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So think of an array as a list of variables that don't have their own names. They are just "first array element", "second array element", "third array element" and so forth until the list is complete. If you don't know how many array elements you have it is easy to do a for loop through them...
foreach thing in my array do somethingThat's great because you need only know the array name. The foreach loop figures out how many things are in the array and does something with each one. If you had hundreds or thousands of individual variables that you wanted to do the same thing with, that would be a mess.
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That makes sense.
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For my current limited understanding arrays are easier to understand than than the $args
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@chutestrate said:
For my current limited understanding arrays are easier to understand than than the $args
$args is just an array, nothing more.
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Here is a little array program to do basically the same thing as above but using an array defined inside of the script rather than passing in arguments from the command line...
$myarray = "John", "Peter", "Linda", "Scott", "Norman", "Jenny" for ($i=0; $i -lt $myarray.length; $i++) { 'This is $myarray[' + $i + "], which is: " + $myarray[$i] } -
When you run it you get this...
> .\arraydemo.ps1 This is $myarray[0], which is: John This is $myarray[1], which is: Peter This is $myarray[2], which is: Linda This is $myarray[3], which is: Scott This is $myarray[4], which is: Norman This is $myarray[5], which is: Jenny -
@scottalanmiller said:
@chutestrate said:
For my current limited understanding arrays are easier to understand than than the $args
$args is just an array, nothing more.
don't follow that one.
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So as you can see, I set the array to have those names in it with this line...
$myarray = "John", "Peter", "Linda", "Scott", "Norman", "Jenny"When you use $args, the exact same thing is happening except that PowerShell is doing it automatically and hidden from you because it is happening from the command line and you don't write it out explicitly. But what is happening under the hood in a case where you do this...
.\myexample John Peter Linda Scott Norman JennyWhat PowerShell is doing without you having to write it is basically this...
$args = "John", "Peter", "Linda", "Scott", "Norman", "Jenny" -
@chutestrate said:
$args is just an array, nothing more.
don't follow that one.
Not sure what else to say. It's that simple. $args is an array. $myarray is an array. There's nothing more to it. The only thing that makes $args special is that it is the one array that PowerShell makes for you when you run your script.
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Not a problem. This has been phenomenal. I've learned a lot. I'll try to use this to understand the args. Unfortunately, I'm looping back to some of my original confusion. I know you addressed it, but it's not making completed sense.
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Definitely leave $args for now and focus on arrays. Once you are solid on arrays, $args is pretty much self explanatory. Try doing some sample scripting with arrays for things. That will help a lot. In all seriousness, doing a MadLibs script is a good way to learn.
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I'll do that.
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I doubt that Martin will agree but I don't find PowerShell to be particularly well suited to learning programming concepts. It's a great language for what it is, but I'm very glad that I learned programming on other languages and then learning PowerShell.
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I'm not fooling myself. I don't do well with trying to be a programmer. This is part of the testing goals. I just got interested in powershell, and am trying it out. Thank you for all the time. I'm rereading the posts, and I'm going to have a hard time matching $args to arrays. Maybe tomorrow it will click.
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@chutestrate said:
I'm rereading the posts, and I'm going to have a hard time matching $args to arrays. Maybe tomorrow it will click.
Just remember that there is nothing to match. $args is just another array like any other. It's not a different thing. It's not "like" an array, or similar to or anything. It is an array. $args is the name of an array. I have a feeling that you are thinking of $args as a thing rather than the name of an array.
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I definitely am. Unfortunately, i don't see it the way you are telling me.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I doubt that Martin will agree but I don't find PowerShell to be particularly well suited to learning programming concepts. It's a great language for what it is, but I'm very glad that I learned programming on other languages and then learning PowerShell.
The languages I've mostly worked with are batch/cmd, Visual Basic, vbScript and PowerShell. So PowerShell is a vast improvement over those
It took me awhile to really grasp the idea of objects and using them for everything in PowerShell, but once I did the whole language opened up to me and I began to realize all the things I could do.
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Both of you have been immensely helpful. I hope I can return the favor in some way.
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@Martin9700 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I doubt that Martin will agree but I don't find PowerShell to be particularly well suited to learning programming concepts. It's a great language for what it is, but I'm very glad that I learned programming on other languages and then learning PowerShell.
The languages I've mostly worked with are batch/cmd, Visual Basic, vbScript and PowerShell. So PowerShell is a vast improvement over those
It took me awhile to really grasp the idea of objects and using them for everything in PowerShell, but once I did the whole language opened up to me and I began to realize all the things I could do.
I come at it from the other direction. Was doing C and Fortran, then Java and C#. Everything is better than Fortran, though.
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@chutestrate said:
I definitely am. Unfortunately, i don't see it the way you are telling me.
If I could figure out how you are perceiving it then maybe I could help more. I'm not sure how you are looking at it, though, which makes it hard for me.
