Powershell SQLCMD

Question

We were experiencing problems with Powershell and SQLCMD, when there was sapces in the -v parameter variable powershell wouldn't run the command.

e.g.

sqlcmd ... -v VAR="Some space"

Has anyone experienced this before or know how to fix the problem?

Thanks,

B

Answer 1

The syntax above works for the PS commandline but fails within a script.

We struggled a long time with how to make this work. One of our very clever QA guys finally came up with the following:

$variableWithSpaces="one two three"
$mySqlCmd = "sqlcmd -E -S $dbServer -i $script  -v var=```"$variableWithSpaces```" "
Invoke-Expression $mySqlCmd 

Plug ugly but it works.

Answer 2

Powershell will actually pass the parameter to the program as "VAR=Some space". Maybe sqlcmd stumbles over this. By using

VAR=`"Some space`"

instead it will get passed as VAR="Some space". Maybe that resolves the problem.