Retrieve results for running jobs in Windows PowerShell
When a job runs, Windows PowerShell stores all command outputs in memory, starting with the first output that the command produced. You don't have to wait for a command to complete before output becomes available.
The job list indicates whether a job has stored results that you haven’t yet retrieved. Here's an example:
PS C:\> Get-Job
Id Name PSJobTypeName State HasMoreData Location
-- ---- ------------- ----- ----------- --------
13 Job13 BackgroundJob Running True localhost
In this example, job ID 13 is still running, but the HasMoreData column indicates that results already have been stored in memory. To receive a job's results, use the Receive-Job command.
By default, job results are removed from memory after they're delivered to you. That means that you can use Receive-Job only once per job. Add the –Keep parameter to retain a copy of the job results in memory, so that you can retrieve them again.
If you retrieve the results of a parent job, you'll receive the results from all child jobs. You also can retrieve the results of a single child job or multiple child jobs.
You also can retrieve the results of a job that's still running. However, unless you specify –Keep, the job object’s results will be empty until the job’s command adds new output.
Here's an example:
Receive-Job –ID 13 -Keep | Format-Table –Property Name,Length