Return a reference to an Excel Worksheet from a PowerShell Function

Question

For the sake of code readability, I\'d like to move my Excel stuff to a function and leave the worksheet object available to write cell values as my program processes stuff. How

Answer 1

If you are looking to get the reference to the worksheet, you can update your code to make sure nothing else is printed / returned besides what you are looking for. As it stands, you are returning two variables..

$wksht = Create-Excel-Spreadsheet

1. $wksht[0] -> Boolean (True)
2. $wksht[1] -> Worksheet reference.

Second index of your return variable will have your spreadsheet reference where first is just a boolean.

This is a good read from the founder of powershell as to why this happens.

If you take your code and execute it, you will find that there is a True printed before the object $xl_wksht itself is printed. What you have to do is to make sure nothing else prints on the screen except for the variable/reference you need.

Change this line in your code and you'll be able to get the reference out.

    $MergeCells.Select() | Out-Null # line 17 of your code. Add | Out-Null. Or, Simply remove this line as it doesnt do anything.

once you have updated your code, you can use a variable to get the value from your method

    $wksht = Create-Excel-Spreadsheet
    $wksht.Cells(5, 1) = "Test"       // Writes Test on Row 5, Col 1.