Repeat character is not working in PowerShell

Question

I want to repeat a character in PowerShell. For example:

$test = "this is a test that I want to underline with --------"
Write-Host $test
Write-Host "-" * $test.length

However, the output with the above code is:

This is a test that I want to underline with --------
- * 53

Am I missing something really obvious?

Answer 1

Change:

Write-Host "-" * $test.length

to:

Write-Host $("-" * $test.length)

---

In argument mode, the parser interprets "-" * $test.length as three separate expandable strings - enclose them in a subexpression ($()) to have the entire expression evaluated before it's bound as a parameter argument.

You may want to Get-Help about_Parsing.