Pass a variable to cmdlet in powershell function [duplicate]

Question

The function below is meant to implement blocked sleep in PowerShell It gets the following error executing Start-Sleep cmdlet:

"Cannot validate argument on parameter 'Seconds'. The argument is null, empty, or an element of the argument collection contains a null value"

The echo prints the correct argument value, but the argument is not passed to the cmdlet. I tried a local variable with the same result. Tried to cast it to string or integer - no avail. The only way it works if the number is hard coded

function BlockedSleep($numSecs)
{
    echo "Sleeping  $($numSecs) seconds"    
    $job = Start-Job {Start-Sleep -s $numSecs }
    Wait-Job $job >$null #this supresses job output to console
    Receive-Job $job

}

Take a look at Get-Help about_Remote_Variables and Get-Help about_Scopes. You will also find this StackOverflow question useful. — Jeff Zeitlin
– Jeff Zeitlin, Commented Mar 28, 2017 at 17:40

Frode F. · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-28 18:10:31Z

0

The job is executed in another thread that does not have access to your script's parameter. You can either include the variable as a argument to the scriptblock:

$job = Start-Job {param($secs) Start-Sleep -Seconds $secs } -ArgumentList $numSecs

Or you can use the using-variable scope (PS 3.0 +):

$job = Start-Job {Start-Sleep -Seconds $using:numSecs }

answered Mar 28, 2017 at 18:10

Frode F.

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1 Comment

user2233677 Over a year ago

The first one did work. Looks like my powershell is not v 3 so the second one returned an error. Thank you so much!

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