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taijidude
taijidude

Posted on • Edited on

Execute a powershell script from inside the git bash

#bash #powershell #shell #cli

I develop on Windows. And somehow got into the habit of using both the powershell and the git bash. It's not clear cut, but generally speaking i use git bash for small tasks and moving around the file system. When writing longer scripts i tend to use powershell.
This week i stumbled about a nice way to execute a powershell script from the bash. This helps to reduce context switches.

You have to use the following Statement

$ powershell -File scriptToRun.ps1
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When you use an alias it gets even more convinient

$ alias ps1='powershell -File'
$ ps1 scriptToRun.ps1
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Addition

Another way to run powershell scripts was suggested by a reader in the comments.

❗ First you have to make sure that the powershell.exe is on the path.

Then add the following shebang line at the start of your script:

#!/usr/bin/env pwsh
"Hello world!"
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$ ./helloWorld.ps1
Hello world!
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Thank you again @vitalytseshkovsky!

Top comments (5)

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vitalytseshkovsky profile image
Vitaly Tseshkovsky •

The solution can be done in UX-script style by using shebang feature:

  1. Make sure that binary powershell or pwsh is in the path.
  2. Add the command #!/usr/bin/env powershell or #!/usr/bin/env pwsh at the beginning of script
  3. Be sure than the script is in UX-style line endings - just apply the command dos2unixon it.
  4. Enable execute permissions for the script.

Now the script can be launched as regular UX-script from bash and as regular power shell script from PS-shell or Windows File Explorer (because shebang is interpreted as a comment by power shell).

Example test.ps1:

#!/usr/bin/env powershell

$cur_dir = Split-Path -Path (Get-Location) -Leaf
write-host "AppdData-Local  => $env:LOCALAPPDATA"
write-host "UserProfile     => $env:USERPROFILE"
write-host "CurrentDirName  => $cur_dir"
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taijidude •

I could not get it to run with #!/usr/bin/env powershell but the other shebang line worked. I updated the blog post. I will try to get the other shebang line working as well.

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taijidude •

Thank you. Will later try it out and add it to the post.

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vitalytseshkovsky profile image
Vitaly Tseshkovsky •

It's a bad idea to make an alias with the same name as an existing bash command "ps". In this case the better choice for alias is ps1, not ps.

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taijidude • • Edited

Yes, you are absolutely right. Thank you for pointing this out. 😊
I changed it.

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