CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershellscriptingstdout
Martin
Martin

Reputation: 40573

How to redirect the output of a PowerShell to a file during its execution

I have a PowerShell script for which I would like to redirect the output to a file. The problem is that I cannot change the way this script is called. So I cannot do:

 .\MyScript.ps1 > output.txt

How do I redirect the output of a PowerShell script during its execution?

Upvotes: 280

Views: 815318

Answers (11)

Mas
Mas

Reputation: 4606

This is what worked for me:

.\myscript.ps1 -myarg1 arg1 -myarg2 arg2 *>&1 1> output.txt

Here is an explanation:

  • *>&1 redirect all streams (specified by *) to the success stream
  • 1> redirect the success stream (specified by 1) to a file

Refer to the documentation to see all the possible options: about Redirection.

It's a bit more complicated than my liking, but I guess it's more flexible.

Upvotes: 2

sonjz
sonjz

Reputation: 5090

If you want a straight redirect of all output to a file, try using *>>:

# You'll receive standard output for the first command, and an error from the second command.
mkdir c:\temp -force *>> c:\my.log ;
mkdir c:\temp *>> c:\my.log ;

Since this is a straight redirect to file, it won't output to the console (often helpful). If you desire the console output, combined all output with *&>1, and then pipe with Tee-Object:

mkdir c:\temp -force *>&1 | Tee-Object -Append -FilePath c:\my.log ;
mkdir c:\temp *>&1 | Tee-Object -Append -FilePath c:\my.log ;

# Shorter aliased version
mkdir c:\temp *>&1 | tee -Append c:\my.log ;

I believe these techniques are supported in PowerShell 3.0 or later; I'm testing on PowerShell 5.0.

Upvotes: 32

mplwork
mplwork

Reputation: 1140

I take it you can modify MyScript.ps1. Then try to change it like so:

$(
    Here is your current script
) *>&1 > output.txt

I just tried this with PowerShell 3. You can use all the redirect options as in Nathan Hartley's answer.

Upvotes: 46

Chris
Chris

Reputation: 153

If you want to do it from the command line and not built into the script itself, use:

.\myscript.ps1 | Out-File c:\output.csv

Upvotes: 11

Fred
Fred

Reputation: 713

Use:

Write "Stuff to write" | Out-File Outputfile.txt -Append

Upvotes: 68

Nathan Hartley
Nathan Hartley

Reputation: 4165

Microsoft has announced on Powershell's Connections web site (2012-02-15 at 4:40 PM) that in version 3.0 they have extended the redirection as a solution to this problem.

In PowerShell 3.0, we've extended output redirection to include the following streams: 
 Pipeline (1) 
 Error    (2) 
 Warning  (3) 
 Verbose  (4) 
 Debug    (5)
 All      (*)

We still use the same operators
 >    Redirect to a file and replace contents
 >>   Redirect to a file and append to existing content
 >&1  Merge with pipeline output

See the "about_Redirection" help article for details and examples.

help about_Redirection

Upvotes: 70

Bratch
Bratch

Reputation: 4223

Maybe Start-Transcript would work for you. First stop it if it's already running, then start it, and stop it when done.

$ErrorActionPreference="SilentlyContinue"
Stop-Transcript | out-null
$ErrorActionPreference = "Continue"
Start-Transcript -path C:\output.txt -append
# Do some stuff
Stop-Transcript

You can also have this running while working on stuff and have it saving your command line sessions for later reference.

If you want to completely suppress the error when attempting to stop a transcript that is not transcribing, you could do this:

$ErrorActionPreference="SilentlyContinue"
Stop-Transcript | out-null
$ErrorActionPreference = "Continue" # or "Stop"

Upvotes: 256

suiwenfeng
suiwenfeng

Reputation: 2003

powershell ".\MyScript.ps1" > test.log

Upvotes: 38

bbcompent1
bbcompent1

Reputation: 494

To embed this in your script, you can do it like this:

        Write-Output $server.name | Out-File '(Your Path)\Servers.txt' -Append

That should do the trick.

Upvotes: 0

Andy Schneider
Andy Schneider

Reputation: 8684

You might want to take a look at the cmdlet Tee-Object. You can pipe output to Tee and it will write to the pipeline and also to a file

Upvotes: 17

zdan
zdan

Reputation: 29450

One possible solution, if your situation allows it:

  1. Rename MyScript.ps1 to TheRealMyScript.ps1

  2. Create a new MyScript.ps1 that looks like:

    .\TheRealMyScript.ps1 > output.txt

Upvotes: 27

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