Jumping around to certain spots in script

Question

Is there a way to make a script jump to a specific spot like :GOTO in command prompt? I wanted to make the script jump to the beginning when it is ended.

$tag1 = Read-Host 'Enter tag #'

cls

sc.exe \\$tag1 start RemoteRegistry

cls

Start-Sleep -s 2

cls

systeminfo /S $tag1 | findstr /B /C:"OS Name" /C:"System Boot Time" /C:"System Up Time";


Get-EventLog system -computername $tag1 -InstanceId 2147489657 -Newest 10 | ft EventID,TimeWritten,MachineName -AutoSize

Pause

Answer 1

There's no goto in PowerShell, and nobody misses it :). Just wrap the block of commands in a loop or something.

Or try the below. You can assign list of commands to a variable, and then execute them with &$varname. It's still not goto, though.

$commands = {

    Write-Host "do some work"

    $again = Read-Host "again?"
    if ($again -eq "y"){
        &$commands
    } else {
        Write-Host "end"    
    }
}

&$commands 

Answer 2

Here's and example using your script:

$GetInfo = {
  $tag1 = Read-Host 'Enter tag # or Q to quit'
  if ($tag1 -eq 'Q'){Return}
  cls
  sc.exe \\$tag1 start RemoteRegistry
  cls
  Start-Sleep -s 2
  cls
  systeminfo /S $tag1 | findstr /B /C:"OS Name" /C:"System Boot Time" /C:"System Up Time"
  Get-EventLog system -computername $tag1 -InstanceId 2147489657 -Newest 10 |
    ft EventID,TimeWritten,MachineName -AutoSize
  .$GetInfo
 }

&$GetInfo

Use . instead of & inside the script block to prevent it from walking up the call stack.

Putting code into script blocks to be called later from arbitrary points in the script (emulating a GoTo) is functionally the same as using a function, and script block used in this manner are sometimes referred to as "anonymous functions".

Answer 3

Another variation on the script with some ideas taken from @mjolinor. I also switched away from using systeminfo because at least on my computer, it's much slower than using the applicable WMI query.

while (1) {
    $tag1 = Read-Host 'Enter tag # or Q to quit'
    if ($tag1 -eq "Q") {
        break;
    }
    sc.exe \\$tag1 start RemoteRegistry;
    start-sleep -seconds 2
    $OSInfo = get-wmiobject -class win32_operatingsystem -computername $tag1;
    $OSInfo | Format-Table -Property @{Name="OS Name";Expression={$_.Caption}},@{Name="System Boot Time";Expression={$_.ConvertToDateTime($_.LastBootUpTime)}},@{Name="System Uptime (Days)";Expression={[math]::Round((New-TimeSpan -Start $_.converttodatetime($_.LastBootUpTime)|select-object -expandproperty totaldays),2)}} -AutoSize;
    Get-EventLog system -computername $tag1 -InstanceId 2147489657 -Newest 10 | format-table EventID,TimeWritten,MachineName -AutoSize
}

I'm not certain that WMI needs remote registry, so you might be able to eliminate the sc.exe line and sleep altogether. Unless you need it for something else.