In a cmd prompt, you can run two commands on one line like so:
ipconfig /release & ipconfig /renewWhen I run this command in PowerShell, I get:
Ampersand not allowed. The `&` operator is reserved for future useDoes PowerShell have an operator that allows me to quickly produce the equivalent of & in a cmd prompt?
Any method of running two commands in one line will do. I know that I can make a script, but I'm looking for something a little more off the cuff.
35 Answers
Use a semicolon to chain commands in PowerShell:
ipconfig /release; ipconfig /renewA semicolon will link the commands as the previous answer stated, although there is a key difference to the behaviour with the & operator in the MS-DOS style command interpreter.
In the command interpreter, the variable substitution takes place when the line is read. This allows some neat possibilities such as swapping variables without an interim:
set a=1
set b=2
set a=%b% & set b=%a%
echo %a%
echo %b%Would result in:
2
1As far as I know, there is no way to replicate this behaviour in PowerShell. Some may argue that's a good thing.
There is in fact a way to do this in PowerShell:
$b, $a = $a, $bIt will result in a single line swapping of the variable values.
1In PowerShell 7, we have Pipeline chain operators which allows you to add some conditional element to your sequential one-line commands
The operators are:
&&this will run the second command only if the first one succeeds.||this will run the second command only if the first one fails.
examples:
PS Z:\Powershell-Scripts> Write-Host "This will succeed" && Write-Host "So this will run too"
This will succeed
So this will run too
PS Z:\Powershell-Scripts> Write-Error "This is an error" && Write-Host "So this shouldn't run"
Write-Error "This is an error" && Write-Host "So this shouldn't run": This is an error
PS Z:\Powershell-Scripts> Write-Host "This will succeed" || Write-Host "This won't run"
This will succeed
PS Z:\Powershell-Scripts> Write-Error "This is an error" || Write-Host "That's why this runs"
Write-Error "This is an error" || Write-Host "That's why this runs": This is an error
That's why this runsof course you can chain them even more together like x && y || z etc.
this also works for old cmd-like commands like ipconfig
PS Z:\Powershell-Scripts> ipconfig && Write-Error "abc" || ipconfig
Windows-IP-Konfiguration
Ethernet-Adapter Ethernet: Verbindungsspezifisches DNS-Suffix: xxx Verbindungslokale IPv6-Adresse . : xxx IPv4-Adresse . . . . . . . . . . : xxx Subnetzmaske . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Standardgateway . . . . . . . . . : xxx
ipconfig && Write-Error "abc" || ipconfig: abc
Windows-IP-Konfiguration
Ethernet-Adapter Ethernet: Verbindungsspezifisches DNS-Suffix: xxx Verbindungslokale IPv6-Adresse . : xxx IPv4-Adresse . . . . . . . . . . : xxx Subnetzmaske . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Standardgateway . . . . . . . . . : xxxThese operators use the $? and $LASTEXITCODE variables to determine if a pipeline failed. This allows you to use them with native commands and not just with cmdlets or functions.
Source:
4For PowerShell 5 (default install for Windows machines for the foreseeable future), you can of course use a semicolon to separate statements, but all statements will be executed by default even if one fails. Personally, I prefer to run things so that if one thing fails the whole line stops in the REPL and I imagine a lot of other folks do as well.
$ErrorActionPreference lets you control the behavior of what happens when a statement fails but is a non-terminating error (which are most errors including command not found errors). You can set this variable $ErrorActionPreference="Stop" in order to emulate the behavior of && in Bash and PowerShell 7 for the scope of this variable.
$ErrorActionPreference="Stop"
# Line break
fakeCommand; echo "Here"I have had trouble finding precise documentation for this behavior, but this variable seems to be dynamically scoped so you can override it in a block temporarily if you don't want to set it globally.
Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock {$ErrorActionPreference="Stop"; fakeCommand; echo "Here"}Finally, if you want something reusable, you can use this higher order function.
function Run-Block-With-Error($block) { $ErrorActionPreference="Stop" Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock $block
}Which is then used as follows.
Run-Block-With-Error {fakeCommand; echo "Here"}Note in the examples above that "Here" is not printed since fakeCommand fails as it is not a real command.
I have tested the code provided in this solution for both PowerShell 5 and 7 and it should be fully portable, at least on Windows. While PowerShell 7 should be very similar on different platforms, I did not test these commands on Linux or MacOS.
"C:\\msys64\\mingw64\\bin\\g++.exe -g3 -Wall \"${file}\" -o \"${fileDirname}\\${fileBasenameNoExtension}.exe\" ; &\"${fileDirname}\\${fileBasenameNoExtension}.exe\""In a powershell
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