Check an external process exit status explicitly.
PowerShell: LASTEXITCODE reports a native child exit code independently of ordinary PowerShell cmdlet errors.
$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
Set-StrictMode -Version Latest
pwsh -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command 'exit 3'
$LASTEXITCODEExpected output EXAMPLE
3
Details
Requires PowerShell 7. Save as snippet.ps1 and run pwsh -NoProfile -File snippet.ps1. Tested on Linux; these examples use portable paths and cmdlets. LASTEXITCODE reports a native child exit code independently of ordinary PowerShell cmdlet errors.
Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS · · PowerShell 7.6.6 · powershell 7.6.6-1.deb
Test inputs, results and environment
The exact published code ran in a dedicated Linux test container with prepared inputs. Snippet process uid 65534 with a read-only root filesystem and temporary working files. Networking disabled. Fixtures and output records are isolated from the application database. Testing covers this example and its stated checks, not every input, operating system, or runtime version. The Linux container shares its host's kernel; this is not a native Windows test.
- Architecture / host kernel
- x86_64 / 6.18.54.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
- Snippet identity / locale
- uid=65534, gid=65534 (unprivileged process) / C.UTF-8
- Interpreter invocation
pwsh -NoLogo -NoProfile -NonInteractive -File snippet.ps1- Container image ID
sha256:ec91410a8f6ec3e985830b5e3a0560306d36f8c1c5ccd91a6699abe707123fa3- Code SHA-256
b4169aa3b5070b5641ac695d1ed687d53ff6792e6d74e6cde9278db2ceff0047- Dependencies
- powershell 7.6.6-1.deb
Test input setup
These are the prepared inputs used by the test harness. See Details above for the prerequisites and how to run this example.
# No input files required.
Observed standard output
3
Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.