Terminating a script in PowerShell

Question

I ve been looking for a way to terminate a PowerShell  PS1  script when an unrecoverable error occurs within a function  For example   function foo           Do stuff that causes an error      host Exit       Of course there s no such thing as  host Exit    There is  host SetShouldExit    but this actually closes the console window  which is not what I want  What I need is something equivalent to Python s sys exit   that will simply stop execution of the current script without further adieu   Edit  Yeah  it s just exit  Duh

User · Answer

I used this for a reruning of a program  I don t know if it would help  but it is a simple if statement requiring only two different entry s  It worked in powershell for me    rerun   Read-Host  Rerun report  y n     if  rerun -eq  y     Show-MemoryReport   if  rerun -eq  n     Exit     Don t know if this helps  but i believe this would be along the lines of terminating a program after you have run it  However in this case  every defined input requires a listed and categorized output  You could also have the exit call up a new prompt line and terminate the program that way

User · Answer

You should use the exit keyword

User · Answer

I think you are looking for Return instead of Break  Break is typically used for loops and only breaks from the innermost code block  Use Return to exit a function or script

User · Answer

Write-Error is for non-terminating errors and throw is for terminating errors  The Write-Error cmdlet declares a non-terminating error  By default  errors are sent in the error stream to the host program to be displayed  along with output  Non-terminating errors write an error to the error stream  but they do not stop command processing  If a non-terminating error is declared on one item in a collection of input items  the command continues to process the other items in the collection  To declare a terminating error  use the Throw keyword  For more information  see about Throw  http   go microsoft com fwlink  LinkID 145153

User · Answer

I realize this is an old post but I find myself coming back to this thread a lot as it is one of the top search results when searching for this topic  However  I always leave more confused then when I came due to the conflicting information  Ultimately I always have to perform my own tests to figure it out  So this time I will post my findings   TL DR Most people will want to use Exit to terminate a running scripts  However  if your script is merely declaring functions to later be used in a shell  then you will want to use Return in the definitions of said functions   Exit vs Return vs Break   Exit  This will  exit  the currently running context  If you call this command from a script it will exit the script  If you call this command from the shell it will exit the shell    If a function calls the Exit command it will exit what ever context it is running in  So if that function is only called from within a running script it will exit that script  However  if your script merely declares the function so that it can be used from the current shell and you run that function from the shell  it will exit the shell because the shell is the context in which the function contianing the Exit command is running   Note  By default if you right click on a script to run it in PowerShell  once the script is done running  PowerShell will close automatically  This has nothing to do with the Exit command or anything else in your script  It is just a default PowerShell behavior for scripts being ran using this specific method of running a script  The same is true for batch files and the Command Line window  Return  This will return to the previous call point  If you call this command from a script  outside any functions  it will return to the shell  If you call this command from the shell it will return to the shell  which is the previous call point for a single command ran from the shell   If you call this command from a function it will return to where ever the function was called from    Execution of any commands after the call point that it is returned to will continue from that point  If a script is called from the shell and it contains the Return command outside any functions then when it returns to the shell there are no more commands to run thus making a Return used in this way essentially the same as Exit  Break  This will break out of loops and switch cases  If you call this command while not in a loop or switch case it will break out of the script  If you call Break inside a loop that is nested inside a loop it will only break out of the loop it was called in    There is also an interesting feature of Break where you can prefix a loop with a label and then you can break out of that labeled loop even if the Break command is called within several nested groups within that labeled loop   While   true          Code here will run       myLabel While   true              Code here will run          While   true                  Code here will run              While   true                      Code here will run                 Break myLabel                   Code here will not run                              Code here will not run                      Code here will not run              Code here will run

User · Answer

May be it is better to use  trap   A PowerShell trap specifies a codeblock to run when a terminating or error occurs  Type  Get-Help about trap   to learn more about the trap statement

User · Answer

I coincidentally found out that Break  lt UnknownLabel gt   e g  simply Break Script  where the label Script doesn t exists  appears to break out of the entire script  even from within a function  and keeps the host alive  This way you could create a function that breaks the script from anywhere  e g  a recursive loop  without knowing the current scope  and creating labels    Function Quit  Text        Write-Host  Quiting because     Text     Break Script

User · Answer

Terminates this process and gives the underlying operating system the specified exit code   https   msdn microsoft com en-us library system environment exit 28v vs 110 29 aspx   Environment   Exit 1   This will allow you to exit with a specific exit code  that can be picked up from the caller

User · Answer

Exit will exit PowerShell too  If you wish to  break  out of just the current function or script - use Break     If   Breakout -eq  true         Write-Host  Break Out        Break   ElseIf   Breakout -eq  false         Write-Host  No Breakout for you     Else       Write-Host  Breakout wasn t defined

User · Answer

Throwing an exception will be good especially if you want to clarify the error reason   throw  Error Message    This will generate a terminating error

[powershell] Terminating a script in PowerShell

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