'Is it possible to pass variables from a BASH Script into PWSH on Linux

We have a project where we want to run some Bash & Powershell scripts on Linux. We will be using a BASH Script to run some processes with various variables, execute a powershell script & then complete some more BASH commands.

If we have variables set in the bash script and then we execute the powershell script in the same BASH session, is there a way to pass those variables across to Powershell?

bashpowershellvariables


Solution 1:[1]

You can pass values via environment variables, which Bash (and POSIX-compatible shells in general) makes easy:

$ foo='BAR'; bar='BAZ' # define sample Bash shell vars.
$ foo="$foo" bar="$bar" pwsh -noprofile -command '$env:foo; $env:bar'
BAR
BAZ

Note how prepending foo="$foo" and bar="$bar" defined shell variables $foo and $bar as process-scoped environment variables for the pwsh call.
That is, these environment variables are only in effect for the pwsh child process.

Alternatives:

  • You can define environment variables separately, beforehand - e.g.,
    export foo='BAR', but note that these stay in effect for the lifetime of the current process that the bash script runs in (unless you undefine them later).

  • To make all variables in your bash script environment variables automatically (again for the lifetime of the current process), you can place a set -a statement before you create your regular shell variables. Then a regular assignment such as foo='BAR' automatically creates foo as an environment variable that PowerShell can access as $env:foo.

Solution 2:[2]

If you export a bash variable it will be available in powershell as $env:variablename:

example=/var/data
export example
pwsh -noprofile -command '$env:example;'

returns /var/data

In Powershell you can run Get-ChildItem Env: to list all environment variables.

Sources

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Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1
Solution 2 Mike A

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