How can I make the output of a script behave similar to Get-Process cmdlet, where it will either return a human readable formatted output if invoked directly, or an object i.e. PSCustomObject which would be used in another script / pipeline?

Basically, the script understands its calling context.

Obviously, I can do MyScript.ps1 (dumps formatted text) or MyScript.ps1 -AsObject but that doesn't seem to be conventional.

Also, if there's a term for this, please educate me.

CodePudding user response：

Scripts or functions may return any "object". Generally, if a script may or not return something the parameter used is -Passthru to instruct the script to return objects. For a script to generate some output, the cmdlet used is generally Write-Output.

In general a Get-* cmdlet is about to return something that is to be used on subsequent cmdlets in the pipeline. This is not the case by example for Set-* which may or not return objects. That's why -Passtru parameter is more present on Set-* so that you can continue the pipeline for any reason.