Question

I know how to execute a single powershell command and view the results of it using C# code. But I want to know how to execute a set of related commands as below and get the output:

$x = some_commandlet
$x.isPaused()

Simply, I want to access the return value of $x.isPaused().

How do I add this functionality to my C# application?

Answer 1

For such commands, it is better that you create something called pipeline and feed it your script. I have found a good example of this. You can find further about this code and such projects here.

private string RunScript(string scriptText)
{
    // create Powershell runspace

    Runspace runspace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace();

    // open it

    runspace.Open();

    // create a pipeline and feed it the script text

    Pipeline pipeline = runspace.CreatePipeline();
    pipeline.Commands.AddScript(scriptText);

    // add an extra command to transform the script
    // output objects into nicely formatted strings

    // remove this line to get the actual objects
    // that the script returns. For example, the script

    // "Get-Process" returns a collection
    // of System.Diagnostics.Process instances.

    pipeline.Commands.Add("Out-String");

    // execute the script

    Collection<psobject /> results = pipeline.Invoke();

    // close the runspace

    runspace.Close();

    // convert the script result into a single string

    StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    foreach (PSObject obj in results)
    {
        stringBuilder.AppendLine(obj.ToString());
    }

    return stringBuilder.ToString();
}

This method is neatly done with proper comments. Also you can directly go to the link of Code Project I gave download it and start playing!