One of the early bugs found in Exchange Analyzer was an error being thrown when the final HTML report was displayed. I had been developing the script in a folder path of X:\Scripts\ExchangeAnalyzer. In other words, a path with no spaces. Some of the early users then tried to run the script from a path such as X:\Scripts\Exchange Analyzer and reported errors.
Here's an example of what went wrong. Let's say we've got an HTML file in C:\Scripts, and it's called “Test Document.html”. If I use Invoke-Expression to launch that HTML file, an error will be thrown:
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PS C:\Scripts> Invoke-Expression '.\Test Document.html' .\Test : The term '.\Test' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again. |
As it turns out, Invoke-Expression doesn't handle spaces in paths like that. But there's a couple of easy fixes that you can use.
One fix is to use the following command instead:
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PS C:\Scripts> Invoke-Expression "& '.\Test Document.html'" |
That will also work if the path to the document is stored in a variable.
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PS C:\Scripts> $document = "C:\Scripts\Test Document.html" PS C:\Scripts> Invoke-Expression "& '$document'" |
The other option is to escape the spaces in the path, for example:
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PS C:\Scripts> $document = "C:\Scripts\Test Document.html" PS C:\Scripts> $document = $document -replace ' ','` ' PS C:\Scripts> Invoke-Expression $document |
The first option is probably better, as it doesn't require you to modify the existing variable or set a new variable for the path with escaped spaces. But either option should solve the problem of using Invoke-Expression with spaces in the path.
Andrew Naish says
July 7, 2018 at 12:42 amHey,
I know this article is old but maybe someone else will come across same issue I had.
My issue was that I had a script path with spaces BUT also the script had parameters. So replacing the spaces was not enough as it messed with
iexfinding the parameters.. to fix I had to explore the world of splatting.. yes, splatting.$params = @{
"param1" = "blah 1"
"param2" = $true
}
$expression = "$base_path\generate.ps1".Replace(' ', '
Invoke-Expression “$expression @params”
`
Kav says
January 19, 2019 at 7:33 amThanks for the comment! Been looking around for a solution to this and finally found this. My script for reference for others:
$RunScript = “$PSScriptRoot\Clients\$Client\$RequestScript.ps1”
$Parameters = @{File = $File}
Invoke-Expression “. ‘$RunScript’ @Parameters”
The value of $PSScriptRoot had spaces in it and was causing issues. Could have moved the script, but wanted something that worked in both situations 🙂
pramd says
February 9, 2019 at 5:53 amUse this simple one liner: Invoke-Expression “C:\’Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16’\EXCEL.EXE”
suraj says
June 19, 2019 at 11:21 pmdoes this same process applies to csv files.
I am actually getting problems with
Invoke-Expression “& ‘.\Test Document.csv'”