Mastering Windows PowerShell Scripting - Third Edition

Assignment within if statements

An if statement can include an assignment step, as follows:

if ($i = 1) { 
    Write-Host "Implicit true. The variable i is $i" 
} 

This is most commonly used when testing for the existence of a value in a variable, for example:

if ($interface = Get-NetAdapter | Where-Object Status -eq 'Up') { 
    Write-Host "$($interface.Name) is up"} 

In the previous example, the statement to the right of the assignment operator (=) is executed, assigned to the $interface variable, and then the value in the variable is treated as an implicit Boolean.