.NET Framework - Pass environment variables to next instance

Asked By Martin Zugec

22-Jan-10 10:40 AM

Hi everyone,

today I run into small problem with PowerShell. I would like to start new
Powershell.exe from existing instance, however new process should see all
variables (similar to Start and Start /I in old cmd).

Any idea?

Martin

22-Jan-10 12:23 PM

I am not sure of a built-in way, but you could easily call get-variable in
your calling script and dump those variables to a txt file.  You could then
read the text file in your destination script and recreate the variables.

22-Jan-10 04:39 PM

then
ew
ll

[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable
("VariableName","VariableValue")
This will create Persistant Environment Variables. To remove them set
the value to emtpy.

22-Jan-10 06:31 PM

Agreeing with Tome, there is no "built-in way" to share your variables other
than using some kind of "transfer mechanism" like Tom suggests with saving
to a file to transfer.

You may want to check this for fun:
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/PowerShellTunnel

Marco

23-Jan-10 01:48 AM

Maybe I am missing exactly where in the calling sequence
you want to get and send this but how about something along
the lines of (in the calling instance):

$env = (get-childitem env:)

Then pass it to the new process and use it to set the env:

The following just prints, but something based on this could
be used to set each variable in the child process:

foreach ($e in $env) {"$($e.key) = $($e.value)" }

There is might be some cute, elegant, trivial way to just
use the hashtable but I do not know it (yet.)

[Note: You can of course print out the $env variable by
just naming it, but the 'foreach' command represents how
you would model setting each variable...but I did not have
time to test such, especially if my suggestion might not
be where you are headed with this.]

--
HerbM

26-Jan-10 07:44 AM

Hi guys,

there is misunderstanding - I do not want to pass Env variables, but I
want to pass powershell variables.

To better understand problem - I can pretty complex frameworks and for
troubleshooting I am using function Start-Debug - it will
automatically invoke every line and return output. Problem is that
this does not behave the same way as in powershell console itself AND
any unexpected error is trapped using trap defined by framework.

What I want to do is that I want to take everything from Variable: and
run new powershell (debug) instance. Once I am finished with
debugging, I would just exit this Powershell.exe and return back to
previous instance.

Martin

26-Jan-10 12:54 PM

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27-Jan-10 07:09 AM

Hi Robert,

looks fine, I will test it tonight :)

I am still pretty curious if there is a chance to combine Export-
CliXML and -InputFormat parameter of Powershell.exe itself.

Martin

30-Jan-10 01:44 PM

Hi Robert,

does not work as expected :( All objects are converted to string when
used with *-CliXML, so you cannot use this in case you want to pass WMI
\COM objects :(

Any other idea? What I want is in fact very simple - have debug
console opened in middle of script execution :(

Martin

29-Jan-10 04:26 PM

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01-Feb-10 04:15 AM

Hi Robert,

it looks like Export-CliXml is in fact acting as ToString(), that is why WMI
classes are translated to WMI instances :(

My problem is that I cannot rely fully on built-in debugging, because (as
far as I remember), it is available only in Posh V2 and most of my customers
are running Posh v1 :(

Martin