Ok, this one is perhaps a little silly, but have you ever struggled with writing output involving an integer with an unknown value together with some text? Don’t know what I’m talking about? I don’t blame you!
I mean this kind of output:
1 file processed
2 files processed
0 files processed
125 files processed
The easy way out would be to write something like this:
Write-Output "$int files processed"
This would mean that for int = 1, the output will be “1 files processed”, but hey – who cares right? I have tried using an if-statement to get the desired result, and while it works, the code don’t look pretty.
So I thought I’d take the time to write a proper function for this. I decided to write a full advanced function, which means that it might feel a bit bloated, but luckily copy/paste don’t care about number of lines.
Anyway, here is the code:
| function Write-PluralString{ | |
| <# | |
| .SYNOPSIS | |
| Write string with built-in handling of plural-s for variable integer. | |
| .DESCRIPTION | |
| Write string with built-in handling of plural-s for variable integer. | |
| .EXAMPLE | |
| Write-PluralString "$($computer): " $num 'file' 'processed' | |
| .EXAMPLE | |
| Write-Verbose (Write-PluralString "$($computer): " $num 'file' 'processed') | |
| .EXAMPLE | |
| Write-PluralString '' $num 'file' $processed | |
| Omitting the PreString | |
| .NOTES | |
| Name: Write-PluralString | |
| Author: Øyvind Kallstad | |
| Created: 18.08.2014 | |
| Version: 1.0 | |
| #> | |
| [CmdletBinding()] | |
| param ( | |
| # Define a starting string. | |
| [Parameter(Position = 0, Mandatory = $false)] | |
| [string]$PreString, | |
| # Integer that will be used as part of the string, and will decide if the StringPart should include the plural-s or not. | |
| [Parameter(Position = 1, Mandatory = $true)] | |
| [int]$IntPart, | |
| # String that will display with or without 's' based on value of the integer before it | |
| [Parameter(Position = 2, Mandatory = $true)] | |
| [ValidateNotNullorEmpty()] | |
| [string]$StringPart, | |
| # Define a string to display at the end. | |
| [Parameter(Position = 3, Mandatory = $false)] | |
| [string]$PostString | |
| ) | |
| Write-Output "$(@{$false="$($PreString) "}[[System.String]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($PreString)])$($IntPart) $(@{$true = $StringPart; $false = "$($StringPart)s"}[$IntPart -eq 1]) $($PostString)" | |
| } |
