Powershell start-job -scriptblock cannot recognize the function defined in the same file?

Question

I have the following code.

function createZip
{
Param ([String]$source, [String]$zipfile)
Process { echo \"zip: $source`n     --> $zipfile\" }
}

try {
    St         


        

Answer 1

Start-Job actually spins up another instance of PowerShell.exe which doesn't have your createZip function. You need to include it all in a script block:

$createZip = {
    param ([String]$source, [String]$zipfile)
    Process { echo "zip: $source`n     --> $zipfile" }
}

Start-Job -ScriptBlock $createZip  -ArgumentList "abd", "acd"

An example returning an error message from the background job:

$createZip = {
    param ([String] $source, [String] $zipfile)

    $output = & zip.exe $source $zipfile 2>&1
    if ($LASTEXITCODE -ne 0) {
        throw $output
    }
}

$job = Start-Job -ScriptBlock $createZip -ArgumentList "abd", "acd"
$job | Wait-Job | Receive-Job

Also note that by using a throw the job object State will be "Failed" so you can get only the jobs which failed: Get-Job -State Failed.