run a cmd command from powershell script

Question

I am trying to run a program called Graphviz in the later stage of a PowerShell script I have to collect and create employee information to make an orgchart

script located here

in windows command prompt (cmd) it would be executed as like this

Create an SVG from DOT file:

dot -Tsvg -o path/to/out_file.svg path/to/file.dot

I may be overthinking this but I don't know how to execute a program in PowerShell with arguments

Thank you in advance

(comments on my script are welcome)

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 02 '21 at 00:01

1

Adding double quotes to your script worked for me:

cmd.exe \c "C:\Program Files\Graphviz\bin\dot.exe" -Tdot abc.gv

answered Jul 02 '21 at 00:01

sroush

5,375
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can you use variables? like cmd.exe /c $dotpath -Tdot $outputpath – Crash893 Jul 02 '21 at 02:17

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 21 '21 at 21:19

0

I found that

    Invoke-Expression -Command "dot -rest of command here"

works.

And also, addressing Crash893's question in comments, variables can be used this way too

    Invoke-Expression -Command "dot -anoption $inputfile $outfile"

answered Dec 21 '21 at 21:19

teleksterling

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run a cmd command from powershell script

2 Answers2