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POHow to run a PowerShell script within a Windows batch file
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copied!<p>How do I have a PowerShell script embedded within the same file as a Windows batch script?</p> <p>I know this kind of thing is possible in other scenarios:</p> <ul> <li>Embedding SQL in a batch script using <code>sqlcmd</code> and a clever arrangements of goto's and comments at the beginning of the file</li> <li>In a *nix environment having the name of the program you wish to run the script with on the first line of the script commented out, for example, <code>#!/usr/local/bin/python</code>.</li> </ul> <p>There may not be a way to do this - in which case I will have to call the separate PowerShell script from the launching script.</p> <p>One possible solution I've considered is to echo out the PowerShell script, and then run it. A good reason to <em>not</em> do this is that part of the reason to attempt this is to be using the advantages of the PowerShell environment without the pain of, for example, <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2009/10/29/9914426.aspx" rel="noreferrer">escape characters</a></p> <p>I have some unusual constraints and would like to find an elegant solution. I suspect this question may be baiting responses of the variety: "Why don't you try and solve this different problem instead." Suffice to say these are my constraints, sorry about that.</p> <p>Any ideas? Is there a suitable combination of clever comments and escape characters that will enable me to achieve this?</p> <p>Some thoughts on how to achieve this:</p> <ul> <li>A carat <code>^</code> at the end of a line is a continuation - like an underscore in Visual Basic</li> <li>An ampersand <code>&</code> typically is used to separate commands <code>echo Hello & echo World</code> results in two echos on separate lines</li> <li>%0 will give you the script that's currently running</li> </ul> <p>So something like this (if I could make it work) would be good:</p> <pre class="lang-none prettyprint-override"><code># & call powershell -psconsolefile %0 # & goto :EOF /* From here on in we're running nice juicy powershell code */ Write-Output "Hello World" </code></pre> <p>Except...</p> <ul> <li>It doesn't work... because</li> <li>the extension of the file isn't as per PowerShell's liking: <code>Windows PowerShell console file "insideout.bat" extension is not psc1. Windows PowerShell console file extension must be psc1.</code></li> <li>CMD isn't really altogether happy with the situation either - although it does stumble on <code>'#', it is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.</code></li> </ul>

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