About Redirection

Article
09/19/2022

Short description

Explains how to redirect output from PowerShell to text files.

Long description

By default, PowerShell sends output to the PowerShell host. Usually this is the console application. However, you can direct the output to a text file, and you can redirect error output to the regular output stream.

You can use the following methods to redirect output:

Use the Out-File cmdlet, which sends command output to a text file. Typically, you use the Out-File cmdlet when you need to use its parameters, such as the Encoding, Force, Width, or NoClobber parameters.
Use the Tee-Object cmdlet, which sends command output to a text file and then sends it to the pipeline.
Use the PowerShell redirection operators. Using the redirection operator with a file target is functionally equivalent to piping to Out-File with no extra parameters.

For more information about streams, see about_Output_Streams.

Redirectable output streams

PowerShell supports redirection of the following output streams.

Stream #	Description	Introduced in	Write Cmdlet
1	Success Stream	PowerShell 2.0	`Write-Output`
2	Error Stream	PowerShell 2.0	`Write-Error`
3	Warning Stream	PowerShell 3.0	`Write-Warning`
4	Verbose Stream	PowerShell 3.0	`Write-Verbose`
5	Debug Stream	PowerShell 3.0	`Write-Debug`
6	Information Stream	PowerShell 5.0	`Write-Information`
*	All Streams	PowerShell 3.0

Note

There is also a Progress stream in PowerShell, but it does not support redirection.

PowerShell redirection operators

The PowerShell redirection operators are as follows, where n represents the stream number. The Success stream ( 1 ) is the default if no stream is specified.

Operator	Description	Syntax
`>`	Send specified stream to a file.	`n>`
`>>`	Append specified stream to a file.	`n>>`
`>&1`	Redirects the specified stream to the Success stream.	`n>&1`

Note

Unlike some Unix shells, you can only redirect other streams to the Success stream.

Examples

Example 1: Redirect errors and output to a file

This example runs dir on one item that will succeed, and one that will error.

dir 'C:\', 'fakepath' 2>&1 > .\dir.log

It uses 2>&1 to redirect the Error stream to the Success stream, and > to send the resultant Success stream to a file called dir.log

Example 2: Send all Success stream data to a file

This example sends all Success stream data to a file called script.log.

.\script.ps1 > script.log

Example 3: Send Success, Warning, and Error streams to a file

This example shows how you can combine redirection operators to achieve a desired result.

&{
   Write-Warning "hello"
   Write-Error "hello"
   Write-Output "hi"
} 3>&1 2>&1 > P:\Temp\redirection.log

3>&1 redirects the Warning stream to the Success stream.
2>&1 redirects the Error stream to the Success stream (which also now includes all Warning stream data)
> redirects the Success stream (which now contains both Warning and Error streams) to a file called C:\temp\redirection.log)

Example 4: Redirect all streams to a file

This example sends all streams output from a script called script.ps1 to a file called script.log

.\script.ps1 *> script.log

Example 5: Suppress all Write-Host and Information stream data

This example suppresses all information stream data. To read more about Information stream cmdlets, see Write-Host and Write-Information

&{
   Write-Host "Hello"
   Write-Information "Hello" -InformationAction Continue
} 6> $null

Example 6: Show the effect of Action Preferences

Action Preference variables and parameters can change what gets written to a particular stream. The script in this example shows how the value of $ErrorActionPreference affects what gets written to the Error stream.

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Continue'
$ErrorActionPreference > log.txt
get-item /not-here 2>&1 >> log.txt

$ErrorActionPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'
$ErrorActionPreference >> log.txt
get-item /not-here 2>&1 >> log.txt

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
$ErrorActionPreference >> log.txt
Try {
    get-item /not-here 2>&1 >> log.txt
}
catch {
    "`tError caught!" >> log.txt
}
$ErrorActionPreference = 'Ignore'
$ErrorActionPreference >> log.txt
get-item /not-here 2>&1 >> log.txt

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Inquire'
$ErrorActionPreference >> log.txt
get-item /not-here 2>&1 >> log.txt

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Continue'

When we run this script we get prompted when $ErrorActionPreference is set to Inquire.

PS C:\temp> .\test.ps1

Confirm
Cannot find path 'C:\not-here' because it does not exist.
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [H] Halt Command  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "Y"): H
Get-Item: C:\temp\test.ps1:23
Line |
  23 |  get-item /not-here 2>&1 >> log.txt
     |  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     | The running command stopped because the user selected the Stop option.

When we examine the log file we see the following:

PS C:\temp> Get-Content .\log.txt
Continue

Get-Item: C:\temp\test.ps1:3
Line |
   3 |  get-item /not-here 2>&1 >> log.txt
     |  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     | Cannot find path 'C:\not-here' because it does not exist.

SilentlyContinue
Stop
    Error caught!
Ignore
Inquire

Notes

The redirection operators that do not append data (> and n>) overwrite the current contents of the specified file without warning.

However, if the file is a read-only, hidden, or system file, the redirection fails. The append redirection operators (>> and n>>) do not write to a read-only file, but they append content to a system or hidden file.

To force the redirection of content to a read-only, hidden, or system file, use the Out-File cmdlet with its Force parameter.

When you are writing to files, the redirection operators use UTF8NoBOM encoding. If the file has a different encoding, the output might not be formatted correctly. To write to files with a different encoding, use the Out-File cmdlet with its Encoding parameter.

Potential confusion with comparison operators

The > operator is not to be confused with the Greater-than comparison operator (often denoted as > in other programming languages).

Depending on the objects being compared, the output using > can appear to be correct (because 36 is not greater than 42).

PS> if (36 > 42) { "true" } else { "false" }
false

However, a check of the local filesystem can see that a file called 42 was written, with the contents 36.

PS> dir

Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                -------------         ------ ----
------          1/02/20  10:10 am              3 42

PS> cat 42
36

Attempting to use the reverse comparison < (less than), yields a system error:

PS> if (36 < 42) { "true" } else { "false" }
At line:1 char:8
+ if (36 < 42) { "true" } else { "false" }
+        ~
The '<' operator is reserved for future use.
+ CategoryInfo          : ParserError: (:) [], ParentContainsErrorRecordException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : RedirectionNotSupported

If numeric comparison is the required operation, -lt and -gt should be used. See: -gt Comparison Operator

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