I want to prompt the user for a series of inputs, including a password and a filename.
I have an example of using host.ui.prompt, which seems sensible, but I can't understand the return.
Is there a better way to get user input in PowerShell?
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powershell
Read-Host is a simple option for getting string input from a user.
$name = Read-Host 'What is your username?'
To hide passwords you can use:
$pass = Read-Host 'What is your password?' -AsSecureString
To convert the password to plain text:
[Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::PtrToStringAuto(
[Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SecureStringToBSTR($pass))
As for the type returned by $host.UI.Prompt(), if you run the code at the link posted in @Christian's comment, you can find out the return type by piping it to Get-Member (for example, $results | gm). The result is a Dictionary where the key is the name of a FieldDescription object used in the prompt. To access the result for the first prompt in the linked example you would type: $results['String Field'].
To access information without invoking a method, leave the parentheses off:
PS> $Host.UI.Prompt
MemberType : Method
OverloadDefinitions : {System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary[string,psobject] Pr
ompt(string caption, string message, System.Collections.Ob
jectModel.Collection[System.Management.Automation.Host.Fie
ldDescription] descriptions)}
TypeNameOfValue : System.Management.Automation.PSMethod
Value : System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary[string,psobject] Pro
mpt(string caption, string message, System.Collections.Obj
ectModel.Collection[System.Management.Automation.Host.Fiel
dDescription] descriptions)
Name : Prompt
IsInstance : True
$Host.UI.Prompt.OverloadDefinitions will give you the definition(s) of the method. Each definition displays as <Return Type> <Method Name>(<Parameters>).
Place this at the top of your script. It will cause the script to prompt the user for a password. The resulting password can then be used elsewhere in your script via $pw.
Param(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true, Position=0, HelpMessage="Password?")]
[SecureString]$password
)
$pw = [Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::PtrToStringAuto([Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SecureStringToBSTR($password))
If you want to debug and see the value of the password you just read, use:
write-host $pw
Using parameter binding is definitely the way to go here. Not only is it very quick to write (just add [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] above your mandatory parameters), but it's also the only option that you won't hate yourself for later.
More below:
[Console]::ReadLine is explicitly forbidden by the FxCop rules for PowerShell. Why? Because it only works in PowerShell.exe, not PowerShell ISE, PowerGUI, etc.
Read-Host is, quite simply, bad form. Read-Host uncontrollably stops the script to prompt the user, which means that you can never have another script that includes the script that uses Read-Host.
You're trying to ask for parameters.
You should use the [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] attribute, and correct typing, to ask for the parameters.
If you use this on a [SecureString], it will prompt for a password field. If you use this on a Credential type, ([Management.Automation.PSCredential]), the credentials dialog will pop up, if the parameter isn't there. A string will just become a plain old text box. If you add a HelpMessage to the parameter attribute (that is, [Parameter(Mandatory = $true, HelpMessage = 'New User Credentials')]) then it will become help text for the prompt.
As an alternative, you could add it as a script parameter for input as part of script execution
param(
[Parameter(Mandatory = $True,valueFromPipeline=$true)][String] $value1,
[Parameter(Mandatory = $True,valueFromPipeline=$true)][String] $value2
)
Source: Stackoverflow.com