Variable scope

Variables may be declared in a number of different scopes. The scopes are:

• Local
• Global
• Private
• Script
• A numeric scope relative to the current scope

Note

More about scopes:The help document, About_Scopes (Get-Help about_Scopes), has more examples and detail.

By default, variables are placed in Local scope. Access to variables is hierarchical: a child (scopes created beneath a parent) can access variables created by the parent (or ancestors).

Local and Global scope

When creating a variable in the console (outside of functions or script blocks), the Local scope is Global. The Global scope can be accessed from inside a function (child) because it is a parent scope:

Remove-Variable thisValue -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue 
$Local:thisValue = "Some value" 
"From Local: $local:thisValue"          # Accessible 
"From Global: $global:thisValue"        # Accessible 
 
function Test-ThisScope { 
    "From Local: $local:thisValue"      # Does not exist 
    "From Global: $global:thisValue"    #...