Try Catch on executable exe in Powershell?

Question

I want to do a Try Catch on an .exe in Powershell, what I have looks like this:

Try
{
    $output = C:\psftp.exe ftp.blah.com 2>&1
}
Catch
{
    echo "ERROR: "
    echo $output
    return
}

echo "DONE: "
echo $output

When I use say an invalid domain, it returns an error like psftp.exe : Fatal: Network error: Connection refused but my code is not catching that.

How would I catch errors?

Answer 1

> try / catch in PowerShell doesn't work with native executables.

Actually it does, but only if you use "$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'" AND append "2>&1".

See "Handling Native Commands" / Tobias Weltner at https://community.idera.com/database-tools/powershell/powertips/b/ebookv2/posts/chapter-11-error-handling.

E.g.

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
Try
{
    $output = C:\psftp.exe ftp.blah.com 2>&1
}
Catch
{
    echo "ERROR: "
    echo $output
    return
}
echo "DONE: "
echo $output