Question

I’m fairly new to powershell, and I’m just not getting how to modify a variable in a parent scope:

$val = 0
function foo()
{
    $val = 10
}
foo
write "The number is: $val"

When I run it I get:

The number is: 0

I would like it to be 10. But powershell is creating a new variable that hides the one in the parent scope.

I’ve tried these, with no success (as per the documentation):

$script:$val = 10
$global:$val = 10
$script:$val = 10

But these don’t even ‘compile’ so to speak.
What am I missing?

Answer 1

You don’t need to use the global scope. A variable with the same name could have been already exist in the shell console and you may update it instead. Use the script scope modifier. When using a scope modifier you don’t include the $ sign in the variable name.

$script:val=10