How To Join All Arguments Passed To Python Vs Powershell Scripts

The aim of this page📝 is to document an idiom of joining arguments into a single string and then writing them into a file (the latter part is actually optional). For fun, comparing the python idiom that uses the .join method the Powershell's use of operators (join, >> aka redirect operator and .. aka range operator).

1. Pyth

#writer.py
import sys
if __name__ == "__main__":
    f = open(sys.argv[1], mode="wt")
    f.write(" ").join(sys.argv[2:])
    f.close()

• if you want to have a script that creates newfile.txt and writes the rest of the text into it
• you add this to the bottom of the module
• argv parses argumets into a list
• create a file with the first argument using the open() method
• utilize slicing to join the rest of the list into a string and write it into the file
• close the file with close()

>>> python ./writer.py newfile.txt hello I want this to be written into newfile.txt

2. Posh

function writer {
    echo (($args[1..($args.Length-1)]) -join " ") >> $args[0]
}

• in PowerShell you find all arguments in an automatic variable called $args
• there is no slicing in posh
• but there is a range operator .. so you can select items from index 1 (second item) to length-1(last item)
• there is a -join operator

▶ writer newfile.txt hello I want this to be written into newfile.txt

3. Links

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/28461189/11082684
• Join Operator — Microsoft Docs
• Range operator — Microsoft Docs