SAPIEN Solutions

The other day I gave you a function to create a VBScript style message box in PowerShell. If you find yourself needing MsgBox in PowerShell, you’re likely going to want InputBox. This too is accomplished using the [microsoft.visualbasic.interaction] class. You’ll need to load the assembly first if you haven’t already.

PS C:\> [reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname(”microsoft.visualbasic”) | Out-Null

PS C:\> [microsoft.visualbasic.interaction]::Inputbox(”enter something”)

As in VBScript you can also specify a title and a default value. Here’s a more complete function you could call and an example.

   1: Function Show-Inputbox {

   2:  Param([string]$message=$(Throw "You must enter a prompt message"),

   3:        [string]$title="Input",

   4:        [string]$default

   5:        )

   6:        

   7:  [reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname("microsoft.visualbasic") | Out-Null

   8:  [microsoft.visualbasic.interaction]::InputBox($message,$title,$default)

   9:  

  10: }

  11:  

  12: $c=Show-Inputbox -message "Enter a computername" `

  13: -title "Computername" -default $env:Computername

  14:  

  15: if ($c.Trim()) {

  16:   Get-WmiObject win32_computersystem -computer $c

  17:   }

Executing the sample code will give you this inputbox:

The inputbox’s return value is whatever you enter. What you need to do, as I’ve done, is add code to validate the data.

$c=Show-Inputbox -message “Enter a computername” `
-title “Computername” -default $env:Computername

if ($c.Trim()) {
  Get-WmiObject win32_computersystem -computer $c
  }

In my example I only use the value in the Get-WMIObject expression if $c has a value. I used the Trim() method to remove any spaces. It’s possible a user could accidentally enter space somewhere so using Trim cleans that up.

Technorati Tags: function, Inputbox, powershell, scripting, VBScript

Tags: function, Inputbox, powershell, scripting, VBScript

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 11:00 am and is filed under VBScript, Windows PowerShell. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.