How Do I Use a string a variable in Powershell?

Question

I am very very new to PowerShell. I am trying to create a script to create new user in AD, with prompts for each switch, but I am struggling a little with the Syntax and was hoping someone could help me.

Currently I have:

$FirstName = Read-Host -Prompt "Please enter the first name"

$LastName = Read-Host -Prompt "Please enter the last name"

New-ADUser -Name $FirstName.$LastName -GivenName $FirstName -Surname $LastName

The above gives me the prompts that I want, but then when I input the last name, it returns the following error:

"New-ADUser : Cannot validate argument on parameter 'Name'. The argument is null or empty. Provide an argument that is not null or 
empty, and then try the command again.
At line:3 char:18
+ New-ADUser -Name $FirstName.$LastName -GivenName $FirstName -Surname  ...
+                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (:) [New-ADUser], ParameterBindingValidationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationError,Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.Commands.NewADUser
"

I assume this is because I have not put the correct entry in after -Name.

Hopefully one of you can help me and give me an explanation & example as to what I should do.

try formatting $FirstName and $LastName to strings. New-ADUser -Name [string]::Format( "{0}.{1}", $FirstName, $LastName) -GivenName $FirstName -Surname $LastName — demo.b
– demo.b, Commented Mar 22, 2018 at 21:31

boxdog · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-22 21:16:27Z

3

Change this line:

New-ADUser -Name $FirstName.$LastName -GivenName $FirstName -Surname $LastName

to:

New-ADUser -Name "$FirstName.$LastName" -GivenName $FirstName -Surname $LastName

answered Mar 22, 2018 at 21:16

boxdog

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1 Comment

Bacon Bits Over a year ago

To clarify what's going on, the issue is that the period is an operator. $FirstName.$LastName means "For the object represented by the variable $FirstName, get the value of the property whose name is the value of the variable $LastName." In other words, 'John'.'Smith' and not 'John.Smith'. For a working example: $Drive = Get-Item C:\; $Property = 'PSIsContainer'; $Drive.$Property should output True because the property PSIsContainer of $Drive has a value of true. If the property doesn't exist, however, you'll just get a null value.

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