Logging to: Console

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Setting up logging

Logging to the console will interfer with your interactive console experience. This provider is meant for use in CI/CD environments!

For messages written to screen in interactive situations, look into using visible-by-default Message Levels.

This command will configure the logging:

Set-PSFLoggingProvider -Name console -Enabled $true -Style '%Message%'

When now generating messages:

Write-PSFMessage -Message "Test Message"

The text shown on console will be:

Test Message

Placeholders

Each available placeholder starts and ends with a “%”. Available Placeholders:

Message	The message that was actually logged
Time	The time the message was written at in “HH:mm:ss.fff” format. E.g.: “14:12:47.453”
Date	The date the message was written at in “yyyy-MM-dd” format. E.g.: “2021-01-17”
Tags	The tags that were part of the message. E.g.: “error, failed, connect”
Level	The level the message was written at. E.g.: “warning”
Module	The module that wrote the message. E.g.: “PSFramework”
FunctionName	The function that generated the message
Line	The line number in the file from which the message was written
File	The file path from which the message was written

A few example Styles and what the output would look like:

%Time% %Message%

14:02:08.229 Test Message

[%Level%] %Message%

[Warning] %Test Message

%File% : %Line%`n  [%Level%] %Message%

C:\scripts\demo.ps1 : 14
  [Verbose] Test Message

Generating Messages

You can write messages using the Write-PSFMessage cmdlet, which functionally replaces Write-Verbose, Write-Host, Write-Warning, Write-Debug or Write-Log:

# Verbose
Write-PSFMessage -Message "Test Message"

# Host
Write-PSFMessage -Level Host -Message "Message visible to the user"

# Debug
Write-PSFMessage -Level Debug -Message "Very well hidden message"

# Warning
Write-PSFMessage -Level Warning -Message "Warning Message"

You can also add tags for better filtering:

Write-PSFMessage -Message "Tagged Message" -Tag special, custom, whatever

Specify the target you are working against to better track actions relating to that specific target:

Write-PSFMessage -Message "Doing something" -Target $ComputerName

For more details on how to generate messages, see the dedicated documentation page

Logging Provider Documentation

For more detailed docs, see the full documentation for the sql logging provider

Back to: Logging