Inject command line arguments into psake

Question

I would like to inject command line parameters into my psake build script like: .\build.ps1 Deploy environment="development"

But psake will treat every argument as a Task and will answer "task does not exists"

Is it possible to inject command line arguments in psake?

build.ps1 -->
Import-Module '.\psake.psm1'
Invoke-psake '.\tasks.ps1' $args
Remove-Module psake

Onia

You may have better luck getting an answer to this question on groups.google.com/group/psake-users or on code.google.com/p/psake – Photoconduction

I've added a feature request to the discussion group - groups.google.com/group/psake-users/browse_thread/thread/… – Ghent

Answer 1

The latest release of psake now supports passing parameters to Invoke-psake, e.g.

Invoke-psake .\parameters.ps1 -parameters @{"p1"="v1";"p2"="v2"} 

This feature has just been added. :)

Stancil

Thanks for the feedback it's a better option than a gobal variable – Onia

PS at the time of writing, this new feature is not part of an official 'release': you will have to get the latest source from the trunk (or whatever a trunk is called in GIT) – Stancil

Answer 2

A global variable will solve my problem for now and with only one reference to $global:arg_environent it will be easy to change if i find a better way to inject the properties.

build.ps1

param(
    [Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=0)]
    [string]$task,
    [Parameter(Position=1,Mandatory=0)]
    [string]$environment = 'dev'
)

clear
$global:arg_environent = $environment
Import-Module .\psake.psm1 
Invoke-psake tasks.ps1 $task
Remove-Module psake

tasks.ps1

properties {
    $environment = $global:arg_environent
}

task default -depends Deploy

task Deploy {  
   echo "Copy stuff to $environment"
}

Onia

Answer 3

I'm no expert, but I don't think it is possible to pass arguments to Invoke-Psake. Looking on the latest source for Psake the params for the Invoke-Psake function are:

param(
    [Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=0)]
    [string]$buildFile = 'default.ps1',
    [Parameter(Position=1,Mandatory=0)]
    [string[]]$taskList = @(),
    [Parameter(Position=2,Mandatory=0)]
    [string]$framework = '3.5',   
    [Parameter(Position=3,Mandatory=0)]
    [switch]$docs = $false    
    )

There are 4 parameters, your build file, a list of tasks, the .NET framework version, whether to output docs of your tasks. I'm new to powershell and psake and I'm trying to do the same thing, I am experimenting with doing something like this in my script to achieve the same thing:

properties { 
   $environment = "default"
}

task PublishForLive -precondition { $environment = "Live"; return $true; } -depends Publish {

}

task PublishForStaging -precondition { $environment = "Staging"; return $true; } -depends Publish {

}

task Publish {
    Write-Host "Building and publishing for $environment environment"
    #Publish the project...
}

Then calling psake with PublishForLive or PublishForStaging, whichever I need:

powershell -NoExit -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Command "& {Import-Module .\tools\psake\psake.psm1; Invoke-psake .\psake-common.ps1 PublishForLive }"

But it doesn't seem to work for me! Setting the $environment variable in the task precondition seems to have no effect. Still trying to make this work...

Stancil

Try making the $environment variable assignment visible outside the scriptblock scope e.g. $script:environment = "Live" – Photoconduction

It's a race condition in your example Publish will run before PublishForStaging. Another solution would be to call Publish from PublishForStaging, but don't know if it's possible or not? – Onia

This works for me: task PublishStage { $environment = "stage" ExecuteTask("Publish") } – Onia