Parameters matching in PowerShell

In this short post I would like to share one interesting feature of the PowerShell: parameters matching by partial name. Suppose that you have the test.ps1 script with switch parameter:

   1: param(

   2: [switch]$recreateSite

   3: )

   4:  

   5: if ($recreateSite)

   6: {

   7:     Write-Host "recreateSite"

   8: }

If you run it in PowerShell console like this:

   1: .\test.ps1 –recreateSite

it will output “recreateSite” in console. Now the interesting thing is that you can run it like this:

   1: .\test.ps1 –r

and result will be the same. I.e. it is not necessary to specify whole name for the parameter – PowerShell will find closest match (-r corresponds to -recreateSite).

Let’s add another parameter “recreateDb”:

   1: param(

   2: [switch]$recreateSite,

   3: [switch]$recreateDb

   4: )

   5:  

   6: if ($recreateSite)

   7: {

   8:     Write-Host "recreateSite"

   9: }

  10:  

  11: if ($recreateDb)

  12: {

  13:     Write-Host "recreateDb"

  14: }

If you now will run it like this:

   1: .\test.ps1 –r

you will see the following error:

Parameter cannot be processed because the parameter name 'r' is ambiguous. Possible matches include: -recreateSite -recreateDb.

Now in order to run it you will need to use minimal name which will uniquely match some parameter. In our example:

   1: .\test.ps1 -recreates

will correspond to “recreateSite”. And:

   1: .\test.ps1 -recreated

will match to “recreateDb”.