Running Powershell from a Batch File

Question

I am trying these commands in a .bat file

@echo off & setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion

powershell -NoLogo -NoProfile -Command ^    
    "$h = [int](Get-Date -Format "HH");" ^
    "$diff = (7-$h)*3600;" ^
    "if ($h -le 7 -or $h -ge 0) { ECHO $h; ECHO $diff; }"

But this throws an error saying command not recognized. Here I am trying to get the hour and subtract $h from 7. Then multiply the result with 3600 and print it on the console.

Can anyone tell me what am I doing wrong?

check this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/33065387/388389 — npocmaka, Feb 07 '20 at 15:10

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 07 '20 at 08:35

The correct powershell syntax would look something like this:

$h = [int](Get-Date -Format "HH")
    $diff = (7-$h)*3600
    if ($h -le 7 -or $h -ge 0) { 
        write-output $h 
        write-output $diff
    }

You could save this powershell code as a ps.1 file and call it from your batch file

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 07 '20 at 09:27

1

Try running them in one line:

powershell -NoLogo -NoProfile -Command "& {    $h = [int](Get-Date -Format 'HH'); $diff = (7-$h)*3600; if ($h -le 7 -or $h -ge 0) { Write-Output $h; Write-Output $diff }}"

answered Feb 07 '20 at 09:27

Wasif

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score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 07 '20 at 08:30

Caret ^ must be the last character on a line that continues. In the code, there is some trailing whitespace in the first row.

Consider code that has whitespace, illustrated by adding pipe chars to beginning and end of line.

|powershell -NoLogo -NoProfile -Command ^    |
|    "$h = [int](Get-Date -Format "HH");" ^|
|    "$diff = (7-$h)*3600;" ^|
|    "if ($h -le 7 -or $h -ge 0) { ECHO $h; ECHO $diff; }"|

Running this provides the following output:

C:\Temp>t.cmd
Cannot process the command because of a missing parameter. A command must follow -Command.

PowerShell[.exe] [-PSConsoleFile <file> | -Version <version>]
...
'"$h = [int](Get-Date -Format "HH");"' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Whereas removing trailing whitespace works like so, |powershell -NoLogo -NoProfile -Command ^| ...

C:\Temp>t.bat
10
-10800

Yes, whitespaces were the problem. Thanks so much! – CuriousDev Feb 07 '20 at 09:50 — CuriousDev, Feb 07 '20 at 09:50

Running Powershell from a Batch File

3 Answers3