Vista - Converting a BAT script into a PowerShell Script

Hi all,
I am in the process of trying to convert a couple of our .BAT scripts into
powershell scripts, however, I'm running into a couple of pesky problems that
I haven't been able to figure out that are related to variable replacement.

Here's my script so far:
------------
$hostname = "A66R66"
$password = "password99"
$drive = "C:"

net user $hostname $password /add /expires:never /passwordchg:no
MKDIR $drive\Backups\$hostname
net share $hostname$=$drive\Backups\$hostname /GRANT:$hostname`,FULL
CACLS $drive\Backups\$hostname /e /p $hostname:f
------------

The problem that I am having is whenever there is a colon ( : ) touching a
variable, things do not do what I expect. For example, in the last line:
CACLS $drive\Backups\$hostname /e /p $hostname:f

it appears as $hostname:f is treated as the variable name instead of
$hostname .

Also, just so I know how to do this in the future, what would be the correct
syntax for putting a variable and a literal right next to each other, for
example:
echo $VARIABLEliteral

so that there will be no space between the two.

Thanks a ton!

On May 15, 12:05*pm, Tony Valenti
<TonyVale...@xxxxxx> wrote:Colons are used to separate the scope of a variable and its name (E.g.
$env:computername, $global:servers, $script:starttime)

You should be either escaping the colon or using $($variable) to
disambiguate the intended interpolation.

NET commands are particularly fussy. However, enclosing in "double quotes",
or escaping the colon with a backquote seems to be the easiest solution.

As for combining Variables and literals into a single string, the + sign is
the solution to get them combined, but direct juxtaposition if PowerShell
could think it's a positional parameter. So:

PSH> $Drive="C:"
PSH> $Drive
C:
PSH> $pathone="temp"
PSH> $pathtwo=$Drive + "\" + $pathone
PSH> $pathtwo
C:\temp
PSH> copy somefile.txt $pathtwo + "\subdir"
will give you an error (it sees three parameters)
PSH> copy somefile.txt $pathtwo"\subdir"
PSH> dir C:\temp\subdir
somefile.txt


--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Tony Valenti" <TonyValenti@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:B9563A1D-947C-4E4D-B785-52D5AE194F4D@xxxxxx

Hi, Charlie!
Just to know: powershell has excellent cmdlet to create path from parts -
Join-Path. See:
[vPodans] $drive = "C:"
[vPodans] $pathone="temp"
[vPodans] join-path $drive $pathone
C:\temp
[vPodans] join-path C: temp
C:\temp
[vPodans]

therefore author may do this:
MKDIR $(Join-Path $drive Backups $hostname)
etc.

--
WBR, Vadims Podans
MVP: PowerShell
PowerShell blog - www.sysadmins.lv

"Charlie Russel - MVP" <charlie@xxxxxx> rakstīja ziņojum�
"news:eyEx5ui1JHA.4632@xxxxxx"...

Yes, I know, but thanks for the reminder. I was simply trying to build a
"safe" example that would show how to get around the CMD conversion issue
the OP was having.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel

"Vadims Podans [MVP]" <vpodans> wrote in message
news:ePYLdRj1JHA.4632@xxxxxx

"Charlie Russel - MVP" <charlie@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eyEx5ui1JHA.4632@xxxxxx$pathtwo"\subdir" works in the specific case of there being no whitespace in
any of the components of the path. So also would $pathtwo\subdir because the
"\" could not be part of a variable name. I think "$pathtwo\subdir" would be
the better practice on the off-chance that $pathtwo contained whitespace.

But the OP's issue had more to do with the case where the first character of
the literal string was not a character that would terminate the preceding
variable name.

/Al

I don't have any data to back it up but I think the subexpressions are
probably pretty heavy. Another way of wrapping the variable that I find is
more consistent looking than escaping the colon (and also helps to make
embedded variables stand out better) is:

"${Key}:${Value}"

Josh

"tojo2000" <tojo2000@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:90db3eff-5788-4693-8f19-58e7381d711e@xxxxxx