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Equivalent of bash set -e #3415
Description
I asked this question on twitter and it was suggested I post here.
Many people consider it good practice to start a bash script.
#! /bin/bash
set -eu
set -e tells the script to stop on first error
set -u tells the script to not allow undeclared variables
Although not everyone agrees
I think set -u and Set-StrictMode -Version 1.0 are equivalent.
I just wrote a set of Powershell scripts for managing an elasticsearch server. Then a few top-level scripts to tie them together.
It would have been really useful to be able to write something equivalent to...
set -e
$someValue = .\server-task-1.ps1
.\server-task-2.ps1 -using $someValue
.\task-that-requires-everything-else-suceeded.ps1
... but I couldn't find how to and ended up with something more like...
$someValue = .\server-task-1.ps1
if ($LastExitCode -ne 0) {
exit $LastExitCode
}
.\server-task-2.ps1 -using $someValue
if ($LastExitCode -ne 0) {
exit $LastExitCode
}
.\task-that-requires-everything-else-suceeded.ps1
if ($LastExitCode -ne 0) {
exit $LastExitCode
}
Apologies if this is already possible and I've missed it...
Activity
SteveL-MSFT commentedon Mar 25, 2017
$erroractionpreference = "stop"is similar toset -e, except it only works against cmdlets and not native commandspauldambra commentedon Mar 27, 2017
As someone fresh to Powershell that's a confusing distinction.
So would $erroractionpreference = "stop" work for my example above..?
i.e.
but
SteveL-MSFT commentedon Mar 27, 2017
$erroractionpreference = "stop"only works ifWrite-Erroris called (such as an exception is raised). It doesn't do any checks against $lastexitcode. We can certainly look into adding another preference variable to throw an exception if $lastexitcode != 0.mopadden commentedon Mar 29, 2017
Would probably want to throw the exception only in a context where Powershell also sets $? to false as a result.
Throwing an exception in other situations where lastexitcode != 0 would not give a result equivalent to "set -e" in bash.
https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/The-Set-Builtin.html
Edit: the idea is to throw an error on failure where the success/failure of an application is not tested.
mopadden commentedon Apr 7, 2017
Hi, i've done some work on this, can I ask for an assignment?
Equivalent of bash `set -e` (PowerShell#3415)
SteveL-MSFT commentedon Apr 11, 2017
mopadden consider it assigned, GitHub doesn't allow assigning to people without write access
7 remaining items
b-rad15 commentedon Jun 29, 2021
Since this is the first search result, linking the most recent thread on this RFC that I can find for anyone interested in implementing it PowerShell/PowerShell-RFC#277
daxian-dbw commentedon Nov 10, 2021
The PR that implements the RFC was already merged as an experimental feature: #15897
So, closing this issue.
nhooyr commentedon Dec 16, 2022
Is the equivalent of
set -euthen:Enable-ExperimentalFeature PSNativeCommandErrorActionPreferenceLinAGKar commentedon Apr 8, 2025
It seems like
$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"makes it exit with 0 (success) on error, so it's not equivalent toset -ein that regard either.