[powershell] Formatting PowerShell Get-Date inside string

I can't get my head around how formatting a datetime variable inside a string works in PowerShell.

$startTime = Get-Date
Write-Host "The script was started $startTime"

...Do stuff...

$endTime = Get-Date
Write-Host "Done at $endTime.  Time for the full run was: $( New-TimeSpan $startTime $endTime)."

gives me the US date format while I want ISO 8601.

I could use

$(Get-Date -Format u)

but I want to use $endTime to make the calculation of the timespan correct.

I have tried all permutations of $, (, ), endTime, -format, u, .ToString(...) and .ToShortDate(), but the one that works.

Instead of using string interpolation you could simply format the DateTime using the ToString("u") method and concatenate that with the rest of the string:

$startTime = Get-Date
Write-Host "The script was started " + $startTime.ToString("u") 

You can use the -f operator

$a = "{0:D}" -f (get-date)
$a = "{0:dddd}" -f (get-date)

Spécificator    Type                                Example (with [datetime]::now)
d   Short date                                        26/09/2002
D   Long date                                       jeudi 26 septembre 2002
t   Short Hour                                      16:49
T   Long Hour                                       16:49:31
f   Date and hour                                   jeudi 26 septembre 2002 16:50
F   Long Date and hour                              jeudi 26 septembre 2002 16:50:51
g   Default Date                                    26/09/2002 16:52
G   Long default Date and hour                      26/09/2009 16:52:12
M   Month Symbol                                    26 septembre
r   Date string RFC1123                             Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:54:50 GMT
s   Sortable string date                            2009-09-26T16:55:58
u   Sortable string date universal local hour       2009-09-26 16:56:49Z
U   Sortable string date universal GMT hour         samedi 26 septembre 2009 14:57:22 (oups)
Y   Year symbol                                     septembre 2002

Spécificator    Type                       Example      Output Example
dd              Jour                       {0:dd}       10
ddd             Name of the day            {0:ddd}      Jeu.
dddd            Complet name of the day    {0:dddd}     Jeudi
f, ff, …        Fractions of seconds       {0:fff}      932
gg, …           position                   {0:gg}       ap. J.-C.
hh              Hour two digits            {0:hh}       10
HH              Hour two digits (24 hours) {0:HH}       22
mm              Minuts 00-59               {0:mm}       38
MM              Month 01-12                {0:MM}       12
MMM             Month shortcut             {0:MMM}      Sep.
MMMM            complet name of the month  {0:MMMM}     Septembre
ss              Seconds 00-59              {0:ss}       46
tt              AM or PM                   {0:tt}       ““
yy              Years, 2 digits            {0:yy}       02
yyyy            Years                      {0:yyyy}     2002
zz              Time zone, 2 digits        {0:zz}       +02
zzz             Complete Time zone         {0:zzz}      +02:00
:               Separator                  {0:hh:mm:ss}     10:43:20
/               Separator                  {0:dd/MM/yyyy}   10/12/2002