Writing errors and output to a text file and Console

Question

I am trying to write the entire output (errors included) of an executing script to the console and a file at the same time. I have tried several different options:

.\MyScript.ps1 | tee -filePath C:\results.txt # only the output to the file .\MyScript.ps1 2> C:\results.txt # only the errors to the file and not the console .\MyScript.ps1 > C:\results.txt # only the output to the file and not the console  

My hope was that I could use the file to review the output/errors.

EDIT:

This is my current test script. The desired results is that all three messages can be seen.

function Test-Error  {     echo "echo"     Write-Warning "warning"     Write-Error "error"        }  Test-Error 2>&1 | tee -filePath c:\results.txt 

Answer 1

Have you tried:

 .\MyScript.ps1 2>&1 | tee -filePath c:\results.txt 

2>&1 is what you're looking for

Note: This answer works great in PowerShell 1.0 and 2.0, but will capture ONLY standard output and errors in PowerShell 3.0 and later.

Answer 2

I wasn't satisfied with any answer I was finding, so I mixed a few and came up with this (in PowerShell 3.0+):

$output = try{your_command *>&1}catch{$_} 

With this you can capture all errors and output that are generated by trying to use your_command.

It catches exceptions when you use a non-existent command:

PS C:\Users\jdgregson> $output = try{your_command *>&1}catch{$_} PS C:\Users\jdgregson> echo $output your_command : The term 'your_command' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again. At line:1 char:15 + $output = try{your_command 2>&1}catch{$_} +               ~~~~~~~~~~~~     + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (your_command:String) [], Comman    dNotFoundException     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException  PS C:\Users\jdgregson> 

It catches exceptions when you pass invalid arguments to an existing command:

PS C:\Users\jdgregson> $output = try{cat C:\invalid-path.txt *>&1}catch{$_} PS C:\Users\jdgregson> echo $output cat : Cannot find path 'C:\invalid-path.txt' because it does not exist. At line:1 char:15 + $output = try{cat C:\invalid-path.txt 2>&1}catch{$_} +               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~     + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (C:\invalid-path.txt:String) [Ge    t-Content], ItemNotFoundException     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetCo    ntentCommand 

And it catches the output if there was no problem with your command at all:

PS C:\Users\jdgregson> $output = try{cat C:\valid-path.txt *>&1}catch{$_} PS C:\Users\jdgregson> echo $output this file is really here 

It works for your example too:

PS C:\Users\jdgregson> $output = try{Test-Error *>&1}catch{$_} PS C:\Users\jdgregson> echo $output echo WARNING: warning Test-Error : error At line:1 char:15 + $output = try{Test-Error *>&1}catch{$_} +               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~     + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Write-Error], WriteErrorExcep    tion     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WriteErrorExceptio    n,Test-Error