Start-BGProcess
SYNOPSIS
Starts a new windowless process with redirected input/output streams.
SYNTAX
Start-BGProcess [-FileName] <String> [[-Arguments] <String[]>] [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] [<CommonParameters>]
DESCRIPTION
Starts a new windowless process with redirected input/output streams. This is useful for driving an interactive command-line application from code.
The Read-BGProcess and Write-BGProcess cmdlets offer a simplified method of responding to interactive command-line prompts such as the netsh or nslookup prompt for instance.
Note that while almost all functionality in netsh and nslookup can be accessed without entering their interactive prompts, not all command-line tools are as automation-friendly. They are used as examples only out of familiarity and because they are broadly available for testing.
EXAMPLES
Example 1
$nslookup = Start-BGProcess nslookup
$nslookup | Read-BGProcess -Wait -MapErrorsToStdOut
$nslookup | Write-BGProcess "www.powershellgallery.com" -PassThru | Read-BGProcess -Wait -Timeout (New-TimeSpan -Seconds 3) -MapErrorsToStdOut
$nslookup | Write-BGProcess "exit" | Wait-BGProcess
$nslookup | Format-List
<#
Process : System.Diagnostics.Process (nslookup)
Id : 24028
Name : nslookup
ExitCode : 0
HasExited : True
#>
Starts an nslookup.exe process without arguments which places you into an interactive nslookup prompt. The initial StandardOutput text is retrieved, and then we write "www.powershellgallery.com" to the StandardInput stream. An Environment.NewLine is appended to the text by default.
The response is read from StandardOutput with a timeout value of 3 seconds since the response is not expected to be immediate. Finally, we write "exit" to the StandardInput stream and wait for the process to exit before showing the $nslookup object contents.
PARAMETERS
-Arguments
Specifies one or more optional command-line arguments.
Type: String[]
Parameter Sets: (All)
Aliases:
Required: False
Position: 1
Default value: None
Accept pipeline input: False
Accept wildcard characters: False
-Confirm
Prompts you for confirmation before running the cmdlet.
Type: SwitchParameter
Parameter Sets: (All)
Aliases: cf
Required: False
Position: Named
Default value: None
Accept pipeline input: False
Accept wildcard characters: False
-FileName
Specifies the file name of the application to run.
Type: String
Parameter Sets: (All)
Aliases: Path
Required: True
Position: 0
Default value: None
Accept pipeline input: False
Accept wildcard characters: False
-WhatIf
Shows what would happen if the cmdlet runs. The cmdlet is not run.
Type: SwitchParameter
Parameter Sets: (All)
Aliases: wi
Required: False
Position: Named
Default value: None
Accept pipeline input: False
Accept wildcard characters: False
CommonParameters
This cmdlet supports the common parameters: -Debug, -ErrorAction, -ErrorVariable, -InformationAction, -InformationVariable, -OutVariable, -OutBuffer, -PipelineVariable, -Verbose, -WarningAction, and -WarningVariable. For more information, see about_CommonParameters.
INPUTS
None
You can't pipe objects to this cmdlet.