This error caught me out. I am putting this post here firstly to remind me if I do it again adn also to help others who may hit the same issue.

Today I am rewriting a function to create a Hyper-V VM so that I can properly script the creation of my labs for demos and other things. I am doing this because I want to use DSC to create an availability group and want to be able to tear down and recreate the machines (but thats for another day)

I also have been looking at Pester which is a framework for running unit tests within PowerShell

You will find some good blog posts about starting with Pester here

Here is the start of the function. I validate the VMName parameter to ensure that there a VM with that  name does not already exist

function Create-HyperVMFromBase { 
[cmdletbinding()] 
param (
 [Parameter(Mandatory = $true,HelpMessage="Enter a VMName for the VM that does not exist")] [ValidateScript({(!(Get-VM -Name $_))})] 
[string]$VMName,

and my Pester test looks like this

$here = Split-Path -Parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path
$sut = (Split-Path -Leaf $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path).Replace(".Tests.", ".")
. {'$here\$sut'}

Describe "Create Hyper V from Base Tests" {
    Context "Parameter Values,Validations and Errors" {
        It exists {
        test-path function:\create-hypervmfrombase | should be $true
        }
        It "Should error when VMName exists" {
        $VMName = (Get-VM|Select -First 1 Name).Name
        create-hypervmfrombase -VMName $VMName |should throw
        }

I thought that what I was testing was that the function threw an error when an incorrect parameter was passed. The should throw should be true but what I got was

So I was getting the correct error but not passing the test. It was a simple fix. Simply adding curly braces around the call to the function

$here = Split-Path -Parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path
$sut = (Split-Path -Leaf $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path).Replace(".Tests.", ".")
. "$here\$sut"
Describe "Create Hyper V from Base Tests" {
    Context "Parameter Values,Validations and Errors" {
        It exists {
        test-path function:\create-hypervmfrombase | should be $true
        }
        It "Should error when VMName exists" {
        $VMName = (Get-VM|Select -First 1 Name).Name
        {create-hypervmfrombase -VMName $VMName} |should throw
        }
    }
}

and we pass the test.

This error caught me out. I am putting this post here firstly to remind me if I do it again and also to help others who may hit the same issue.

I also have been looking at Pester which is a framework for running unit tests within PowerShell

You will find some good blog posts about starting with Pester here

So I created a function script file Create-HyperVFromBase.ps1 and a tests script file Create-HyperVFromBase.tests.ps1 as shown.

The tests contained this code

 $here = Split-Path -Parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path
$sut = (Split-Path -Leaf $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path).Replace(".Tests.", ".")
. {'$here\$sut'}
Describe "Create Hyper V from Base Tests" {
    Context "Parameter Values,Validations and Errors" {
        It exists {
        test-path function:\create-hypervmfrombase | should be $true
        } 
}
}

When I ran the test I got the following error

or

Googling pester “The script failed due to call depth overflow.” returned only 7 results but the Reddit link contained the information I needed

.Replace() is case sensitive. It didn’t remove the .tests. keyword from your file name. So it calls your test script again and repeats the same mistake over and over.

and so I renamed the tests script file to Create-HyperVFromBase.Tests.ps1 With a Capital T! and bingo

Don’t forget to name your Pester Tests scripts with a capital T when loading the script in this way and remember that Replace() is case sensitive.

$here = Split-Path -Parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path
$sut = (Split-Path -Leaf $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path).Replace(".Tests.", ".")
. "$here\$sut"