Conditional statements in Powershell are the same, conceptually, as conditional statements in any programming language. They are sections of code that execute based on provided conditions.
You can think of conditional statements as a fork in the road. When you get to it, a decision about which direction to go needs to be made. Virtually any script you write will perform various activities, but your script will inevitably need to make logical determinations.
Let’s start with the if
statement:
$myVar = 2 if ($myVar -eq 2) { Write-Host "A True Statement" } Write-Host "After the if statement"
The above example will output A True Statement!
since $myVar
does equal 2
. The code will finish with the output, After the if statement
.
if
statements consist of two parts:
- The conditional statement inside the parentheses,
$myVar -eq 2
, - The body inside the curly brackets is the code to run if the condition is true,
A True Statement!
Alternatively, when $myVar
is anything but 2
, the code inside the if
statement body will not run, and only After the if statement
will be output.
Instructions
The script if_example.ps1 defines a variable $var
.
Write an if
statement below the variable definition to test if $var
equals 5
. Be sure to include curly braces for the body, but leave them empty.
Use Write-Host
to output “It’s a match” if the conditions are met.