Assign results correctly: Better performance, cleaner code

Tired of cumbersome PowerShell scripts? Learn how direct assignment of variables can simplify your code and significantly increase performance.

When you need to store the results of a command, you naturally assign it to a variable:

$result = Get-Process 

However, when you need to store results produced by a loop, many users resort to manual array handling:

# starting with an empty array
$result = @()





$list = 'Tobias',' Chrissy', 'Alex', 'Melinda', 'Jordan', 'Jeffrey'

foreach ($element in $list)

{

    # manually putting results into array

    $result += "processing $element"

}

$result.count

$result 

Why not simply assign the result to a variable again and let PowerShell take care of all the array handling?

$list = 'Tobias',' Chrissy', 'Alex', 'Melinda', 'Jordan', 'Jeffrey'

$result = foreach ($element in $list)

{
 
    # not assigning information turns it into a return value

    "processing $element"

}



$result.count

$result

This is much easier, and it’s about 100x faster, too.

Note that you can assign anything to a variable—whether it’s a command, a control structure such as a loop, or even a condition. Most people write like this:

$date = Get-Date



if ($date.Hour -lt 12) 

{

    $text = 'morning'

}

else

{

    $text = 'evening'

}



"It is $text."

Why not assign the result to a variable just once and take it directly from the control structure:

$date = Get-Date



$text = 

if ($date.Hour -lt 12) 

{

    'morning'

}

else

{

    'evening'

}



"It is $text." 

Related links 

• ScriptRunner ActionPacks  will help you automate tasks
• Try out ScriptRunner here
• ScriptRunner: Book a demo with our product experts