Is it possible to check if -Verbose argument was given in Powershell?

Question

I have written my own Powershell logging function Log with parameters stream (on which stream to write the message) and message (the message to write).

The idea is that i can write the outputs both to the console and to a log-file. What I do in the function is basically determine on which stream to publish the message (with a switch statement) and then write the message to the stream and the log-file:

switch ($stream) {     Verbose {         Write-Output "$logDate [VERBOSE] $message" | Out-File -FilePath $sgLogFileName -Append         Write-Verbose $message         break     } } 

The question is now, is it possible to check if the -Verbose argument was given?

The goal is to write the message to the log-file only if the -Verbose was given.

I looked already in the following help docs but didn't find anything helpful:
- help about_Parameters
- help about_commonparameters

Also, the -WhatIf parameter does not work with Write-Verbose.

Thanks a lot for your answers!

Answer 1

Inside your script check this:

$PSCmdlet.MyInvocation.BoundParameters["Verbose"].IsPresent 

Answer 2

Also available: Check the parameter '$VerbosePreference'. If it is set to 'SilentlyContinue' then $Verbose was not given at the command line. If it is set to '$Continue' then you can assume it was set.

Also applies to the following other common parameters:

Name                           Value ----                           ----- DebugPreference                SilentlyContinue VerbosePreference              SilentlyContinue ProgressPreference             Continue ErrorActionPreference          Continue WhatIfPreference               0 WarningPreference              Continue ConfirmPreference              High 

Taken from an MSDN blog page from long ago... so it should be relevant with relatively old versions of Powershell. Also see "Get-Help about_CommonParameters" in Powershell v4.