Prompt for user input in PowerShell

Question

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

User · Accepted Answer

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 gt   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  lt Return Type gt   lt Method Name gt   lt Parameters gt

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

[powershell] Prompt for user input in PowerShell

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