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In PowerShell, "$count개" silently drops the number

Inside a double-quoted string, a Korean (or any Unicode) letter right after a variable swallows the whole variable into an empty value. No error. Wrap it in $() or ${}.

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TOOLSPowerShell 7

Symptom

I wanted to print how many files I had moved, so I wrote:

powershell
$made = 3
"링크 $made개"     # "links: 3 (count)" — in Korean the unit 개 sticks to the number

I expected "링크 3개" and got "링크 ". The number was gone, and there was not a single error line. It bit me twice in the script I used to move to a new laptop. I stared at the output and wondered whether nothing had been moved at all.

Cause and principle

PowerShell replaces $name inside a double-quoted string with the variable's value. Where the name ends is decided by "keep going as long as the characters are legal in a name". Legal characters are not just letters, digits and underscores from ASCII — Unicode letters such as Korean count too. So $made개 is not "$made followed by 개"; it is one variable named made개. No such variable exists, so an empty string is inserted, and reading an undefined variable is not an error with the default settings.

In English you rarely hit this because a space follows the variable, as in "$count items". Korean counters (개, 명, 번, 원) attach directly to the number, which is exactly where it breaks. The same thing happens with any language whose letters sit right after a variable.

Fix

Make the end of the variable name explicit. Both forms work.

powershell
$made = 3
"링크 $($made)개"   # subexpression — inserts the evaluated value
"링크 ${made}개"    # braces — pins the name boundary

Scan the scripts you already have. This regex finds "a variable name followed immediately by a Korean letter".

powershell
Select-String -Path .\*.ps1 -Pattern '\$[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z0-9_]*[가-힣]'

Check again

powershell
$made = 3
"링크 $made개"      # 링크        ← reproduces as is
"링크 $($made)개"   # 링크 3개

If you want an error the moment an undefined variable is read, turn on strict mode at the top of the script file. Then it stops right there with "The variable '$made개' cannot be retrieved because it has not been set."

powershell
Set-StrictMode -Version Latest

Pitfalls

  • Variable names are case-insensitive. $h and $H are the same variable, so whichever is assigned later overwrites the other. Keep your home folder in $H and use $h further down, and you get the wrong value.
  • Set-StrictMode turned on in an interactive terminal can make other commands and tools you run afterwards stop with "variable … has not been set". Keep it at the top of script files only.