How do you pass an entire array to an It block?

[codykonior]

In the BeforeDiscovery block I'm setting up variables of lists of files to operate on. Then I have two different kinds of tests:

• The normal kind that tests each file, e.g. It -ForEach $file
• Another kind where I need the entire collection at once, e.g. checking for filenames duplicated in different folders

I can see how to do the first one in the examples:

BeforeDiscovery { 
  $files = ...
}

Describe "Blah" {
  It "Blah <_>" -ForEach $files {
    $file | ...
  }
}

But how do I do the second one? The closest I've come is to wrap it in an array again and then exclude the empty entry:

  It "Blah" -ForEach (, $files) {
    $files = $_ | Select-Object -Skip 1
    ... (some calculation that requires the whole array) ...
  }

But it's pretty kludgy. Is there another way?

[fflaten]

You won't get empty items with (,$files), just an array with the files-array as first and only time.

It "Blah" -ForEach (, $files) {
    # Executes once with $_ equal to the original $files
}

You could also use a hashtable as a wrapper. Each key will be available as a named variable in the test.

It "Blah" -ForEach @{files = $files} {
    # executes once. $files (key) contains the array. $_ contains the hashtable 
}