Powershell: Colon in commandlet parameters

Question

What\'s the deal with Powershell commandlet switch parameters that require a colon?

Consider Exchange 2010 management shell cmdlet Move-ActiveMailboxDatabase. The Co

Answer 1

The colon can be used with every parameter value but is more special in the case of switch parameters. Switch parameters don't take values, they are either present ($true) or absent ($false).

Imagine you have a function like this:

function test-switch ([string]$name,[switch]$force) { ... }

And you call it like so:

test-switch -force $false

Since switch parameters are either present or not, $false would actually bind to the Name parameter. So, how do you bind a value to a switch parameter? With the colon:

test-switch -force:$false

Now the parameter binder knows which parameter the value goes to.