I’m building a retry function that accepts a scriptblock and some retry settings, but the function seems to stop before running its body. What should I check?
Why does my PowerShell retry function stop before it runs the scriptblock?
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saffronfax
Answers
Check the braces around the function. The parameter declaration already sits inside the function’s scriptblock, so an extra opening brace immediately after param(...) starts a separate nested scriptblock. The function can then finish after setting up its parameters instead of reaching the retry loop. Remove that extra brace and its matching closing brace.
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This is exactly the kind of bug that gets hard to see after staring at the same code for hours. Run a formatter and check the indentation and brace matching. The function should have one outer body, with the loop and try/catch blocks nested inside it, not another block opened after the parameters.
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The call operator with a scriptblock parameter is a reasonable way to invoke the supplied operation. Since the function body itself wasn’t being reached, I’d fix the block structure before changing how the scriptblock is passed. A tiny test that writes a marker from inside the retry function can confirm the body is running.
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saffronfax:
That was the problem. The extra brace made the rest of the function a separate scriptblock, so the retry code never ran.