How to pass boolean values to a PowerShell script from a command prompt

Question

I have to invoke a PowerShell script from a batch file  One of the arguments to the script is a boolean value   C  Windows System32 WindowsPowerShell v1 0 powershell exe -NoProfile -File   RunScript ps1 -Turn 1 -Unify  false   The command fails with the following error   Cannot process argument transformation on parameter  Unify   Cannot convert value  System String  to type  System Boolean   parameters of this type only accept booleans or numbers  use  true   false  1 or 0 instead   At line 0 char 1     lt  lt  lt  lt   lt br  gt    CategoryInfo            InvalidData       RunScript ps1   ParentContainsErrorRecordException  lt br  gt    FullyQualifiedErrorId   ParameterArgumentTransformationError RunScript ps1   As of now I am using a string to boolean conversion inside my script  But how can I pass boolean arguments to PowerShell

User · Answer

This is an older question  but there is actually an answer to this in the PowerShell documentation  I had the same problem  and for once RTFM actually solved it  Almost    https   docs microsoft com en-us powershell module microsoft powershell core about about powershell exe  Documentation for the -File parameter states that   In rare cases  you might need to provide a Boolean value for a switch parameter  To provide a Boolean value for a switch parameter in the value of the File parameter  enclose the parameter name and value in curly braces  such as the following  -File   Get-Script ps1  -All  False    I had to write it like this   PowerShell Exe -File MyFile ps1  -SomeBoolParameter False    So no     before the true false statement  and that worked for me  on PowerShell 4 0

User · Answer

A more clear usage might be to use switch parameters instead  Then  just the existence of the Unify parameter would mean it was set   Like so   param      int   Turn     switch   Unify

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I had something similar when passing a script to a function with invoke-command  I ran the command in single quotes instead of double quotes  because it then becomes a string literal   Set-Mailbox  sourceUser -LitigationHoldEnabled  false -ElcProcessingDisabled  true

User · Answer

You can also use 0 for False or 1 for True   It actually suggests that in the error message      Cannot process argument transformation on parameter  Unify   Cannot convert value  System String  to type  System Boolean   parameters of this type only accept booleans or numbers  use  true   false  1 or 0 instead    For more info  check out this MSDN article on Boolean Values and Operators

User · Answer

I think  best way to use set boolean value as parameter is to use in your PS script it like this   Param       Parameter Mandatory  false   ValidateSet  true    false    string  deployApp  false         deployAppBool    false switch  deployPmCmParse ToLower           true     deployAppBool    true       default    deployAppBool    false       So now you can use it like this     myApp ps1 -deployAppBool True   myApp ps1 -deployAppBool TRUE   myApp ps1 -deployAppBool true   myApp ps1 -deployAppBool  true    myApp ps1 -deployAppBool false  and etc      So in arguments from cmd you can pass boolean value as simple string

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Running powershell scripts on linux from bash gives the same problem  Solved it almost the same as LarsWA s answer   Working   pwsh -f   test ps1 -bool true   Not working   pwsh -f   test ps1 -bool 1 pwsh -f   test ps1 -bool true pwsh -f   test ps1 -bool true pwsh -f   test ps1  -bool true  pwsh -f   test ps1 -bool  true pwsh -f   test ps1 -bool   true pwsh -f   test ps1 -bool 1 pwsh -f   test ps1 -bool 1

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In PowerShell  boolean parameters can be declared by mentioning their type before their variable       function GetWeb                  param  bool   includeTags                                    You can assign value by passing  true    false      GetWeb -includeTags  true

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To summarize and complement the existing answers  as of Windows PowerShell v5 1   PowerShell Core 7 0 0-preview 4   David Mohundro s answer rightfully points that instead of  bool  parameters you should use  switch  parameters in PowerShell  where the presence vs  absence of the switch name  -Unify specified vs  not specified  implies its value  which makes the original problem go away     However  on occasion you may still need to pass the switch value explicitly  particularly if you re constructing a command line programmatically     In PowerShell Core  the original problem  described in Emperor XLII s answer  has been fixed   That is  to pass  true explicitly to a  switch  parameter named -Unify you can now write   pwsh -File   RunScript ps1 -Unify  true           separates name and value  no space   The following values can be used   false  false   true  true  but note that passing 0 or 1 does not work   Note how the switch name is separated from the value with   and there must be no whitespace between the two   Note  If you declare a  bool  parameter instead of a  switch   which you generally shouldn t   you must use the same syntax  even though -Unify  false should work  it currently doesn t - see this GitHub issue     In Windows PowerShell  the original problem persists  and - given that Windows PowerShell is no longer actively developed - is unlikely to get fixed    The workaround suggested in LarsWA s answer - even though it is based on the official help topic as of this writing - does not work in v5 1   This GitHub issue asks for the documentation to be corrected and also provides a test command that shows the ineffectiveness of the workaround   Using -Command instead of -File is the only effective workaround         From cmd exe powershell -Command   amp    RunScript ps1 -Unify  true     With -Command you re effectively passing a piece of PowerShell code  which is then evaluated as usual - and inside PowerShell passing  true and  false works  but not true and false  as now also accepted with -File    Caveats    Using -Command can result in additional interpretation of your arguments  such as if they contain   chars   with -File  arguments are literals   Using -Command can result in a different exit code    For details  see this answer and this answer

User · Answer

It appears that powershell exe does not fully evaluate script arguments when the -File parameter is used  In particular  the  false argument is being treated as a string value  in a similar way to the example below   PS gt  function f   bool  b      b    f -b   false  f   Cannot process argument transformation on parameter  b   Cannot convert value   System String  to type  System Boolean   parameters of this type only accept  booleans or numbers  use  true   false  1 or 0 instead  At line 1 char 36   function f   bool  b      b    f -b  lt  lt  lt  lt     false        CategoryInfo            InvalidData       f   ParentContainsErrorRecordException       FullyQualifiedErrorId   ParameterArgumentTransformationError f   Instead of using -File you could try -Command  which will evaluate the call as script   CMD gt  powershell exe -NoProfile -Command   RunScript ps1 -Turn 1 -Unify  false Turn  1 Unify  False   As David suggests  using a switch argument would also be more idiomatic  simplifying the call by removing the need to pass a boolean value explicitly   CMD gt  powershell exe -NoProfile -File   RunScript ps1 -Turn 1 -Unify Turn  1 Unify  True

User · Answer

Try setting the type of your parameter to  bool    param        int  Turn   0      bool  Unity    false    switch   Unity         true    That was true    break       default    Whatever it was  it wasn t true    break       This example defaults  Unity to  false if no input is provided   Usage    RunScript ps1 -Turn 1 -Unity  false

[scripting] How to pass boolean values to a PowerShell script from a command prompt

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