What is the effect of the -ErrorAction Stop for an Invoke-Expression statement?

Question

I am using Invoke-Expression on each line of a file. If one of the lines causes an error, I would like to stop executing. I have tried using -ErrorAction Stop but it has no effect.

What is supposed to be the effect of the following?

gc -Path "fileWithErrorOnSomeLine.txt" | % {Invoke-Expression "$_" -ErrorAction Stop }

How can one exit the loop immediately if the expression invocation creates an error?

Note: The following change does not stop iterating through the file contents

gc -Path "fileWithErrorOnSomeLine.txt" | % {Invoke-Expression "$_" -ErrorAction Stop } -ErrorAction Stop

[Don't use `Invoke-Expression`](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/powershell/2011/06/03/invoke-expression-considered-harmful/). — Ansgar Wiechers, May 02 '19 at 09:16

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 02 '19 at 12:13

Use try-catch

"tester" > testing.txt
"test2" >> .\testing.txt
"get-childitem" >> .\testing.txt

gc .\testing.txt |  % { 
    try { invoke-expression "$_" -ErrorAction Stop
    }
    catch { 
        write-warning "error : $_ "
        break
    }
}

More info on how to terminate a loop: Terminating a script in PowerShell

What is the effect of the -ErrorAction Stop for an Invoke-Expression statement?

1 Answers1