PowerShell, verbose output to log file from results in a 'Foreach'

Question

I'm wanting to save each 'write-verbose' and 'write-warning' to a text/log file once the script has completed.

I have tried out-file within the loop and out of the loop with a var at the start, like items suggested here. How to dump the foreach loop output into a file in PowerShell?

edit: it would be handy to capture the outputs from the Measure-Command also.

But this didn't work for my script. Any help would be appreciated.

#initialisation
CLS
$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
$VerbosePreference = "continue"

#Settings
$SubFolder = ".\_Orphan"
$FileListFile = ".\DirtoMove.csv"



#Retrieve List with folders to move from current folder.
Try { [Array]$FilesToMove = Get-Content $FileListFile }
Catch {Write-Warning "could not load $($FileListFile)"; Start-Sleep -S 3 ; Exit}

#If subfolder does not exist then create it.
If (!(Test-Path $SubFolder)) {
    Try { New-Item $SubFolder -ItemType Directory | Out-Null}
    Catch {Write-Warning "Could not create subfolder $($SubFolder)"; Start-Sleep -S 3 ; Exit}
}
Measure-Command{
#Try to moving the folders from the list to the the specified subfolder.
Foreach ($File in $FilesToMove) {



    #If folder does not exist then skip.
    If (!(Test-Path $File)) {
        Write-Verbose "File $($File) Does not exist, skipping"; 
        Continue
    }

    # Check if folder already exist in the sub folder.
    If (Test-Path (Join-Path -Path $SubFolder -ChildPath $File)){
        Write-Verbose "File $($File) exists already in the subfolder, skipping";
        Continue    
    }


    #try moving the folder.
    Try {
        $File | Move-Item -Destination $SubFolder;
        Write-Verbose "File $($File) succesfully moved." ;
    }
    Catch {Write-Warning "Could not move file $($File), Skipping" ; Continue}        
}

}

Write-Verbose "Script finished, waiting for 5 seconds before closing."

Start-Sleep  -Seconds 5

Answer 1

Have a look at redirection. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_redirection?view=powershell-6

In this case, it's example 3 that would be appropriate for this.

When running your script, call it like this:

./Script.ps1 3>&1 4>&1 > C:\result.log

This redirects the warning stream (3>&1) and the verbose stream (4>&1) to the success stream which is then redirected to a file (> C:\result.log)

Answer 2

You can use Start-Transcript at the very first line of your script , and Stop-Transcript at the end. The entire thing that the script does will be logged automatically in a log file.

Start-Transcript