PowerShell - Overwriting line written with Write-Host

Question

I'm trying to overwrite a line in PowerShell written with Write-Host (I have a process that's running in a loop and I want to show percentage updated on the screen). What I've tried to do is this:

Write-Host -NoNewline "`rWriting $outputFileName ($i/$fileCount)... $perc%" 

but instead of overwriting the line it stays on the same line and appends to it.

what am I missing here?

Thanks

Answer 1

You cannot overwrite a line in a Powershell window. What you can do is blank the window with cls(Clear-Host):

# loop code cls Write-Host "`rWriting $outputFileName ($i/$fileCount)... $perc%" # end loop 

But what you should really be using is Write-Progress, a cmdlet built specifically for this purpose:

# loop code Write-Progress -Activity "Writing $outputFileName" -PercentComplete $perc # end loop 

More on Write-Progress here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849902.aspx

Answer 2

As a tweak to Raf's answer above, You don't have to wipe the screen every time to update your last line. Calling Write-Host with -NoNewLine and carriage return `r is enough.

for ($a=0; $a -le 100; $a++) {   Write-Host -NoNewLine "`r$a% complete"   Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 10 } Write-Host #ends the line after loop