How to Clear Variables in PowerShell

PowerShell offers multiple ways to clear variables. You can use the Clear-Variable cmdlet or assign a $null value to the variable.

Method 1: Using the Clear-Variable to Clear Variable

Clear-Variable -Name variable

Method 2: Using the Clear-Variable to Clear Multiple Variables

Clear-Variable -Name variable1,variable2

Method 3: Using the $null to Clear Variable

$variable = $null

All these methods clear the content of the variable.

The following examples show how to use these methods in practice.

Using the Clear-Variable cmdlet to Clear Variable

To clear a variable in PowerShell, you can use the Clear-Variable cmdlet. This command deletes the contents stored in a variable.

The following PowerShell script shows how to do it.

$variable1 = "This is demo app"
Clear-Variable -Name variable1

Write-Output $variable1

In this example, $variable1 stores the data in it. We have used the Clear-Variable cmdlet that takes the variable name as input and deletes the data stored in a variable, Write-Output cmdlet prints an empty line.

Output:

Using the Clear-Variable Cmdlet to Clear Multiple Variables

You can use the Clear-Variable cmdlet to clear multiple variables at once by providing their names separated by commas.

The following PowerShell script shows how to do it in practice.

$myVariable1 = "Hi"
$myVariable2 = "Adam"

Clear-Variable -Name myVariable1, myVariable2

In this example, after using the Clear-Variable cmdlet, it clears both variable’s values, not the variable itself.

You can also use the wildcard with the variables to clear multiple variables at once.

$myVariable1 = "Hi"
$myVariable2 = "Adam"

Clear-Variable -Name myVar*

In this example, we have clear multiple variables with the help of a wildcards pattern used with the variable name. The Clear-Variable command clear the variable value that name starts with myVar

Using the $null Value to Clear the Variable

To clear a variable value in PowerShell, you can assign it the value of $null.

The following PowerShell script shows how to do it.

$myVariable = "Hello, Adam!"

$myVariable = $null

Write-Output $myVariable

In this example, the $myVariable stores the data in it. By assigning the $null value to the $myVariable, it deletes the data stored in the variable. If we try to print the variable value using the Write-Output cmdlet, it will print an empty line.

Conclusion

I hope the above article on how to clear variables in PowerShell using the Clear-Variable cmdlet and $null are helpful to you.

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