how to use " with a variable without it quoting it as a name?-CodePudding

I've been trying to write a script that involves creating shortcuts that point to a .ps1 file. The goal of the script would be to compare two folders and for any files that appear in folder #1 but not folder #2 a shortcut would be created that would have "powershell.exe -file '$shortcutpath'" with $shortcutpath being the location of the file itself and powershell.exe -file being needed to launch the shortcut with Powershell.

This is what I have so far. P.S... There are some lines that are used to remove any unwanted files

$sourcelist = Get-ChildItem -path "C:\Users\yo\Documents\Powershell Lab\source" | Get-ItemPropertyvalue -name "name"
$shortcutlist = Get-ChildItem -path "C:\Users\yo\Documents\Powershell Lab\fixes" | Get-ItemPropertyvalue -name "name"


#compare files
$sourceNoShortcutList = Compare-Object -ReferenceObject $sourcelist -DifferenceObject $shortcutlist |Where-Object SideIndicator -eq '=>' |ForEach-Object InputObject
$reqshortcutlist = Compare-Object -ReferenceObject $sourcelist -DifferenceObject $shortcutlist |Where-Object SideIndicator -eq '<=' |ForEach-Object InputObject


#removes unmatched files from fixes folder
foreach($filename in $sourceNoShortcutList){
  $fPath = Join-Path "C:\Users\yo\Documents\Powershell Lab\fixes" $fileName 
  Remove-Item -LiteralPath $fPath
}



foreach($filename in $reqshortcutlist){
  $shortcutpath = Join-Path "C:\Users\yo\Documents\Powershell Lab\source" $fileName
$pscpath = "powershell.exe -file '$shortcutpath'"
$sclocation = "C:\Users\yo\Documents\Powershell Lab\fixes\$filename.lnk"
$WScriptObj = New-Object -ComObject ("WScript.Shell")
$shortcut = $WscriptObj.CreateShortcut($sclocation)
$shortcut.TargetPath = $pscpath
$shortcut.Save()
}

With

$pscpath = "powershell.exe -file '$shortcutpath'"

the output looks like this

powershell.exe -file 'C:\Users\yo\Documents\Powershell Lab\source\find.ps1'

swapping " and ' looks like this

powershell.exe -file "$shortcutpath"

Looking at scripts I have manually made shortcuts for they look like this

powershell.exe -file "C:\Users\yo\Documents\Powershell Lab\source\find.ps1"

very close to

powershell.exe -file 'C:\Users\yo\Documents\Powershell Lab\source\find.ps1'

I believe I need to somehow use the " around $shortcutpath but doing so quotes the name instead of the value but this could be wrong

the error I get while running the full script looks like this

Value does not fall within the expected range.
At C:\Users\yo\Documents\Powershell Lab\Scripts\scmaker\scriptshortcutmaker.ps1:23 char:1
  $shortcut.TargetPath = $pscpath
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      CategoryInfo          : OperationStopped: (:) [], ArgumentException
      FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.ArgumentException

All details listed in post

CodePudding user response：

The TargetPath should be a file path without arguments. To pass arguments use the Arguments property.

Double quotes can be used inside a double-quoted string if they are escaped using the backtick character or doubled.

$shortcut.TargetPath = "powershell.exe"
$shortcut.Arguments = "-File ""$shortcutpath"""