Forum Discussion

Copper Contributor

Feb 25, 2026

stop expanding parentheses in a variable

Hello We have created a script using PowerShell and Box CLI to create groups in Box as a user request them. We have had success with the script until recently. We had a user request that failed...

Windows PowerShell

Charlie34000

MCT

Mar 22, 2026

Hi,

PowerShell is not expanding the parentheses — the issue is that your variable is passed without quotes, so Box CLI receives two separate tokens:

Test-Group(Name) _Owner

This is why you get:

_Owner was unexpected at this time

To fix it, you must preserve the quotes around the argument when calling Box:

$ClientName = "Test-Group(Name)";
$BoxClientOwnerName = "$ClientName`_Owner";
$BoxLOWGRPRaw = $( Box groups:create --json "`"$BoxClientOwnerName`"" );

Or more cleanly:

powershell

$BoxLOWGRPRaw = Box groups:create --json $BoxClientOwnerName | ConvertFrom-Json;

(Here PowerShell handles quoting correctly.)

The parentheses are not the problem — the missing quotes are.