There are a number scenarios where you need to update a script to add a minor feature or fix a bug but you can’t really run the script to test your changes.  Perhaps the script is destructive and you’d have to comment out a bunch of script to test and then remember to uncomment the code.  Or perhaps the script can only be run on a production server and won’t run on your dev PC.  Wouldn’t be nice if there were a way to at least have PowerShell try to parse the script after your updates and report parse/syntax errors.  In a previous post I discussed how to do this when dealing with a script full of just functions (ie no directly executing script).  This approach doesn’t work if your scripts contain script at the top level.  However there is another way that will at least tell you if there is a problem or not:

# Contents of file TestScript.ps1
param($path, [switch]$verbose)

if ($verbose) {
    $VerbosePreference = ‘Continue’
}

trap { Write-Warning $_; $false; continue }
& `
{
    $contents = get-content $path
    $contents = [string]::Join([Environment]::NewLine, $contents)
    [void]$ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.NewScriptBlock($contents)
    Write-Verbose "Parsed without errors"
    $true
}

Note that this doesn’t give useful error information such as the actual line of script that is bad but at least you will know if there is a problem or not.

Many thanks to Karl Prosser of PowerAnalyzer fame for giving me the pointer to the $ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.NewScriptBlock method.

Update: Fixed some script problems pointed out by Shay.  Thanks!