Starting in PowerShell 7.3, you can trace the binding of native commands. This feature is useful for troubleshooting issues with passing parameters native commands in PowerShell. There is no standard format for passing arguments to native commands. Each command-line tool has its own rules for parsing parameters and arguments. The way the PowerShell parses the command line is different from version to version and platform to platform.
The rules for parsing, quoting strings, and escaping characters are complex. For more information, see:
The output from Trace-Command shows how PowerShell parses the command-line arguments for a native
command.
Parsing command-line arguments for native commands
Older versions of PowerShell you have to use a tool like echoargs.exe to see how PowerShell passes
arguments to native commands. You can use the make-echoargs.ps1 script to create the
echoargs.exe tool for Windows.
The following examples shows the output from Trace-Command followed by the output from echoargs.
Trace-Command -Name ParameterBinding -Expression {
echoargs -param this is 'a test' --verbose
} -PSHost -Option ExecutionFlow
DEBUG: 2024-08-09 15:14:09.3088 ParameterBinding Information: 0 : BIND NAMED native application line args [C:\Public\Toolbox\echoargs.exe]
DEBUG: 2024-08-09 15:14:09.3098 ParameterBinding Information: 0 : BIND cmd line arg [-param] to position [0]
DEBUG: 2024-08-09 15:14:09.3100 ParameterBinding Information: 0 : BIND cmd line arg [this] to position [1]
DEBUG: 2024-08-09 15:14:09.3102 ParameterBinding Information: 0 : BIND cmd line arg [is] to position [2]
DEBUG: 2024-08-09 15:14:09.3104 ParameterBinding Information: 0 : BIND cmd line arg [a test] to position [3]
DEBUG: 2024-08-09 15:14:09.3105 ParameterBinding Information: 0 : BIND cmd line arg [--verbose] to position [4]
DEBUG: 2024-08-09 15:14:09.3177 ParameterBinding Information: 0 : CALLING BeginProcessing
5 argument(s) received (enclosed in <...> for delineation):
<-param>
<this>
<is>
<a test>
<--verbose>