Research Triangle PowerShell Users Group User Group, 18 Jul 2021

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From YouTube: What's the right PowerShell Write cmdlet to use to write to the right output (Steven Judd)

Description

Have you ever wondered if you're writing data in your scripts the correct way? For example, when should you use Write-Host vs Write-Output? How do you write to the console and the logs at the same time?

Join Steven Judd for a walk through on the various Write-* cmdlets. He covers what the cmdlets are, how they work and what we should use them for. We designed this talk for both beginners and scripting pros, because this is a topic that so many people can improve on in their own personal usage.

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A

Hey everybody thanks for joining us tonight. My name is mike canakas and on behalf of my co-lead phil boss, we'd like to welcome brother here tonight we are going to be talking with our guest steven judd about what is the right right, commandlet, to use to write to the right output. Aka we're going to be talking about the right commandlets, so we'd like to welcome our guest stephen tonight, hey steven. How are you I'm doing great all right?

A

Well, thank you for joining us steven, and I have talked about this topic in the past and I had said to stephen that I would love to find someone who is well versed in the writer mallets because I felt like I never really knew them as well as I should- and I have worked with stephen privately and with groups before and stephen has always done a really great job. At explaining these topics and stephen thought: hey man, why don't you give me a shot?

A

This is kind of in my wheelhouse I'd love to talk about that. So that's kind of how we got started with this. But for those who don't know steven, why don't you tell us a little bit about what your day job is like and uh your background with powershell.

B

Okay, so my my day, job is I'm a digital security analyst for an oil and gas company and I've been using powershell. I figured out that my first training class was officially a microsoft training class on powershell in 2008, didn't understand it at the time kind of made a commitment to get started and learning it in 2010 and I've been in it pretty much ever since then. I think the the breaking over point for me was. I was the lead, sharepoint admin at the time, and I saw that we had about this.

B

Many commands that you could do in the gui for sharepoint 2010, and they had this many. If you can see that on screen commands that you could access via powershell- and I said well, writing's on the wall- better learn this stuff and I'm so glad. I did because it's really done a lot for me in my career and my ability to get things done.

A

And I know from speaking with you previously that you have been a mentor to people at work and you also have done training sessions to help people kind of get up to speed on powershells right.

B

That is correct.

A

Yep so with that being said, how many times would you say, you've been through talking about these things and saw that people don't really understand all the things that there are about the right commandments, input? I mean output streams and how to use them effectively. Is this a topic that a lot of people botch.

B

I wouldn't say that they watch it, but I think that they have strong opinions about it and I'm actually going to cover that. In my talk, so I feel like we can. We can jump right in unless you have more questions.

A

No, I think, that's good, um so so everybody, I hope you enjoy this one tonight. We're gonna turn it over to stephen and steve. It's all yours.

B

All right! Well, I realized I missed a great opportunity when you asked me how I was doing. I should have said I'm all right. So what we're going to talk about is the right right right right right. Oh I'm, sorry! I realized I screwed up too. Can everyone see my screen? Don't you always have to ask that on a team's meeting, right, correct?

B

Okay, let's get after this thanks kevin! So here's my little intro slide, I'm stephen jeb, I'm a multi-year multi-discipline it pro. I am also a powershell enthusiast, I'm also a dad joke enthusiast. If you haven't figured that out yet you'll probably figure it out, sometimes fashion icon, maybe not so all right. Let's get serious about the right commands.

B

Let's talk about what we're going to talk about what are streams, console-based streams, very exciting redirection, powershell, based streams by the way there's not going to be a quiz, so you don't have to memorize all this a call to action, some preferences, because everybody has preferences and finally we'll finish off with some points to ponder.

B

So, let's start off first with streams, definition, here's a good definition, interconnected input and output, communication channels between a program and its environment. Wow. Doesn't that sound great? And I stole it of course, because I didn't have a good definition from it, so that was from standard streams? Okay, great!

B

Let's start talking about console streams all right, so we have standard streams. What is a console stream if you have your standard console, which is command processor command.com, if you're old school and going with the dos cmd efc windows, etc, or even the linux hosts, where you're dealing with dash or torn shell or whatever your preferred terminal? Is you have standard input, sometimes abbreviated, stdin standard in and you got standard output, okay put stuff in you get stuff out cool and then, if you screwed up, you get the third piece of this uh stream.

B

Is you get the standard error? So some? If you look in the documentation, you'll see std err and this not very great image. I didn't have time to redraw it. I really should have, but you can kind of get the ideas you in the gray square. You have the text terminal and you've got your keyboard and as you're typing it's going standard in and then when you hit enter you're processed.

B

So in this case, let's say um when um we're doing directory in in dos or in the command window, so you type in dir and you press enter and the process the command processor will do that and then the standard out will be the files that you see or if you do dir or excuse me, d e l on the windows directory. We would hope that it wouldn't allow you to do that or you do something on nt loader. You get an error and that's going to show up in standard error.

B

Okay, console streams, it's sort of cool, but you kind of get the gist of what that's about redirection is when you send one stream to another stream or what you call it. When you tell a stream where to go twice right, because it's re direction, something: okay, it's a joke. You only have to tell a stream where to go one time and it looks like this. I'm gonna send number two to number one and that's going to redirect the error stream into the success stream. Well. Why would you want to do that?

B

Typically, you see this when you want to capture the output to a log, and you wish to send the success and the failure messages into one file. If you don't do that, what will go into the file will be what's in the success stream.

B

Okay, I have never used redirection.

B

It's okay, don't want to do any hard lines here, but only on other people's code, because I follow the proper use of the streams in my code, rendering redirection unnecessary and that's what's so awesome and, of course, with anything you make a strong statement, there's always exceptions.

B

If you want more details about the streams you can follow this link, and uh yes, this does remind me- this is the new thing with edge when you copy a url and you paste it, you get the you get the title text instead of the actual url, so I will make this slide available, so you can just click it. But if you search about redirection powershell in the microsoft docs.

A

You'll get that okay, I got questions.

B

A

All right, so, let's go back to that slide for a second redirect going back so this this two in one redirect error to success. So um I've always heard about this and I've never done it either. And I understand that if you kind of know what you're doing with powershell that you shouldn't have to do that. But it seems to me like. Is that, like an old programming trick from other languages that people are carrying forward and trying to do in powershell.

B

A

B

So that's really right.

A

So this is a habit that we really need to unlearn.

B

Yes, now again, I'm going to point out the exceptions exist bullet, but yes, this is a habit that I think powershell people should unlearn. The reason that the redirect is so important is because in in the linux world, especially, everything is text and you have to process everything as text. Well, we're in powershell. We don't deal with the text anymore.

B

We deal with objects, and so there's things you can do in there that are just not available if you're a text based only and so the the redirects there's there's ways to, and I've got some examples. So we'll see that uh so.

A

B

Other questions.

A

So before you go, nuts glenn sardis is basically jumping up and down like a madman in chat because he thinks we're crazy. So if you would mind explaining glenn, I would love to know.

C

Well, to glenn's point really: the thing is that not everything is inside powershell, so that only works. You know. So, if you do anything outside use, batch use, command line or if you're, using linux and you're using other things that all applies. So you should. You know it did the same applies but like with everything else, the stream processing and how streams work are all the effectively the same. But that's the context to greater than you know at one is one of those things to redirect from one stream to another.

C

Now they're, noting that there's you know, stream is on two. This is on one all that kind of stuff. So that's kind of hey. You just need to learn the language, that's really what it is, but the idea the fundamentals of understanding that there are streams and streams going different places and they effectively are different channels. That is the fundamental thing that you should definitely understand. Now, how you do it and it's just you gotta, be familiar with the language.

A

So so so that's the reason that I wanted to do this discussion because I feel like I have knowledge gaps and I want to fill in the things. So when you see you know two and one I've seen that and I've never had to use it, and I don't know why. So I'm just trying to clarify that for myself and probably other people that are watching, I can.

C

Give you a really easy example. If you want.

A

C

Has anybody ever.

A

Done java version to figure out what version of java you're on yeah yeah that writes the standard error, not stand it out. So if you want to log that in the ci system you have to redirect it to stand it out to even see it, that's interesting. I think it has that same problem as well right, yeah, binary, yeah, because standard error is not a structured output, it's just a bucket that it isn't standard outstanding. Unfortunately, I've come across that so many times with external tools.

C

So, ultimately, like fun said it's an external tool thing, and so it's just using that tool where it is and so because that application doesn't right to the right place or what I believe whatever. But if it doesn't do it into that stream, you need to grab it or you're trying to do something all hey. I see it on the console, but I don't see it here. It's probably exactly like gun said it's just in the wrong stream for the other streams now.

B

Again, a lot of what we're discussing here is not specifically powershell, but it's definitely something to know about streams, and you know just because you see touch on screen doesn't necessarily mean that what you think is happening is what's happening. So it's a good point: yeah, okay, okay, um moving on all right, so powershell is greater than command exe.

B

Okay, it has more streams than the standard console now. Glenn just pointed out something I didn't know that posix has more streams than those as well. That's pretty cool! I didn't know that, but powershell has six streams to be exact, and so what we're going to be talking about is the right commandlets from the microsoft powershell utility module to send data's data into those streams.

B

Okay, and so that's how we're going to control whatever output you want to have into the various strings, so it's time to jump into the streams with both feet. Of course, I, like jokes, that really make a splash isn't that right mike.

A

I'm staying on mute.

B

Fair enough, all right, so stream number one. Let's talk about the first and the most important stream, in my opinion, the success stream, it's also known as the output stream or the success pipeline. It's what's displayed in the console by default, keyword being by default, and it comes from out host hold up now. Outpost is not a write command. I know we're talking about write commands, but outpost is automatically appended to every powershell command.

B

That's interesting! Okay! If you go look at the outpost command, it only has one parameter available to it. Paging.

B

Thus, you can use pipe outpost, dash paging to get more and paging basically functions like more it scrolls up and when it hits the bottom it'll pause until you hit spacebar or enter okay.

B

However, I find it faster to type pipe to more, plus I'm more familiar with more okay. uh Did you say you wanted more all right. You want some more more I'll. Give you some more more more in windows. Powershell is actually a function with a single parameter.

B

That's interesting! How did you figure that out? Well, I ran pardon me for the abbreviations that when I, when I'm at the console I abbreviate like a maniac, I do get command more and I pipe that into select exp script block. You know what let's do it? Let's see what that looks like okay, so here I am windows powershell hit command more.

B

Let's just run that first and as you can see, it's a function all right. Well, let's go see. What's in that function, so select I'll tab through that, so we get it expand property and I want the script block interesting.

B

So that's what it looks like, and so this is where it's taking a string parameter and the string is paths okay. Before I get into that, I want to go back to my slides because my slides explain this. At least I think they do so more calls more.com to return more unless you pass past and then more will get the content of the paths to pass to more.com, resulting in more content for more.com to more against or some might say, to.

A

B

B

I couldn't resist I'm sorry apologizing now.

A

I think I'm gonna need to put a disclaimer on the start of this video for the people who watch.

B

You knew what you were getting into when you agreed to. Let me talk, oh and but more in powershell is actually more.com. All right so remember get coming in here on more. Let's do that over in powershell, seven, okay command more and it's just the application.

B

Okay, but that's that's! What out host is doing is out host is coming in and out host has paging. That's all it has. Actually, let's jump over here. Look at that. We'll just do text message, some text and I'll type that to outpost and I'll hit that and you can see paging plus the other standard parameters.

B

That's it that's what it does not very exciting, but that's what's happening when you're, when you're sending content to the success stream and that's how it gets there. Let's see, I already did that command, so we're up all right. So, let's talk about write output because right output is how data gets to the success stream. So right output sends the specified objects to the next command in the pipeline.

B

Okay, so whatever you send in the right outfit, it sends it down. If there isn't a pipeline, it sends it to out default, which is added to the end of every pipeline.

B

Okay, but I already said that out host is automatically added. So what is our default? Doing? Our default actually comes before outpost to evaluate whether there's a registered view for the object type being passed. So, according to the help not according to me, the view specifies which properties to display and how they should be displayed.

B

Okay, so you send something down the pipeline. Okay, hit. It's right, output right output sends it to out default out default, sends it checks it evaluates and sends it onto our host. Okay, since outpost is added by our default, automatically write output passes the objects across the non-specified pipeline to our default. Okay. I think I just said that, so I don't. I don't need to say that again. I know it's a little confusing that that's what is happening behind the scenes when you're running right output.

B

Of course I had to get this from some information for some uh from some documentation so that I actually got it right. There's the link how powershell, formatting and outputting really works? Okay, now I'm going to tell you don't use right output. I have a major head explode.

B

If I haven't made your head explode from the dad jokes, I'm going to try to do it by confusing you, but then I'm going to make sense out of it now seriously don't use right output and you may be saying yourself: okay, I use write-up it all the time why it's slow!

B

Okay, all it does I'll write output does is wrap the command. Let right object, which is already called by default when outputting to the success stream, so success stream has the right object in front of it all the time. So now you have write output going to pipeline. If there is no pipeline, it sends it to out default. How default goes to outpost outpost goes to right object, because right object is in front of the success stream.

B

Now, of course, all this happens in the background. It's all in all kind of programmatic magic, so you don't have to do anything about it, but why do we care that it's slow? Well, it's because mark krauss knows better than we do so. We should not use right output because mark kraus says that and here's his blog, let's kill right output. So if you really want to go digging into the details of why rout uh right output is bad, he actually gives some examples that shows it's slower.

B

So what do you do? You just send your command into the success stream by not putting any more data in there and when it hits the console or it hits the command processor, it will go straight to outdefault straight to outpost straight to the success stream straight to, however, it's supposed to be displayed now. I know that's a lot, so I'm going to pause for a second and see if anyone has any questions about what I just said.

A

So, let's cover that again, so not using right output. What would I be doing instead.

B

You just send your command directly to the console or in your script you just put it on the the command and when it process it so like this. If I do ls and I hit enter, I get that if I say ls and I do write output.

B

I get the exact same thing. The second one imperceptibly is slower than the first one, because it has to process the right output.

B

Then it processes out default and outpost and then displays so it's adding an extra command now. You'll, never notice this, and probably in if you're in interactive use, you'll never notice that it's way too fast. But if you're going through a loop and you're doing a lot of commands, it starts to show up.

A

But what about? If I'm writing scripts- and I just want to return informational messages to people on the screen that have nothing.

B

A

With commands so just status updates, let's say.

B

Okay, that is something else we're going to get to. So please hold that thought.

A

Okay, fair enough. Okay, I used right now put this sent to a log file this this. You know about the console. What have you sent into a file.

B

So, if you're doing right output, how are you sending it to the file.

A

Okay, I'm mixing up something, I'm mixing up with something in my head. That's that's right. I think you're, probably thinking of right information.

B

Or add content or.

C

Probably think an out file out files.

A

Right, yes, they're using right hosts, I use outright output and I send that to.

B

Okay, so whatever it is whatever command you're using to gather your information, you can skip the right output, part and just type it right into outfile.

B

So I mean, as you can see here, this is it takes input, objects and it shoves them down the pipeline. That's really about it! Now I see a no enumerate in there and frankly I didn't look into that. I don't know what that does. So I'd have to look into that.

B

Okay, okay, all right back to where we're at so that's the success stream, that's the long and the hard one and it's confusing, because when you look at it you're trying to figure out what all that business is about, but it's just it's it's streams, blah! Let's see! If I get my language to work now it is stream one and it's where everything is successful.

B

This is where you want to put your objects, so whatever functions, you're, writing or scripture. Writing you want your successful objects to go into stream. One success stream! Okay, that's gonna, be important because we're gonna come back to where the other ones go specifically.

A

But you say that you say that like I need to do that, but that is really what happens by default.

B

Correct correct: I'm I'm going to cover that a little bit more. So just hang with me for a little bit.

A

B

The error stream, so let's talk about the airstream, I'm going to change streams a little bit here and thank goodness, the error stream is not confusing and is easy right.

B

Okay, errors that occur in the console will go to the error stream and be stored in the error variable in reverse order. Okay, so uh let me talk about reverse order. Right, quick is the most recent error that you have is error array position zero, because it's a zero-based array and then the one that happened just before that is error one. So the dollar error variable is an automatic variable that is grabbing up all of the errors.

B

You can use this to your advantage in your scripts or in the console, so you can go see what errors you had and the most recent one is always going to be dollar error square braces: zero.

B

Okay, how do these errors get in there? Okay, um quick side. Note I really kind of wish I'd taken this off the slide, but I didn't um I've heard people say when you get a bunch of errors. It looks as the console is bleeding because of all the red, but anyway so console bleeding. How do you get errors into the error stream? Well, we're going to use right, error, okay, so right error will send a non-terminating error to the error stream and will also store the error in the error variable good.

B

If you want to end after right error, so you're writing a function and you, if you get an error, you want it to stop right. Error will not stop the code because it's a non-terminating error. You need to code the stopping. So what I like to do is I like to catch any errors in a try, catch block and then either use right, error or followed by return or use, throw to write the error and then end processing.

B

Frankly, I wind up using throw more because I know it's a well I'm about to explain why it is so. The difference between write, error and throw is right. Error is non-terminating, which means script keeps going, which is good.

B

If you want to say hey, this didn't work, but it's not going to break my script, so keep rolling, throw is terminating, which means if this error happens, we're done we're out just stop it, stop everything, because you can't continue so, for example, if you're trying to um write a file to a network location and you test to see that network location is there and it's not there. Well, then nothing else in your script is going to work.

B

However, you've seen the non-terminating errors whenever you've done uh like a recursive look through a directory and there may be a directory or a file that you can't read.

B

Well, you don't want your recursive search of files to stop you just say: here's an error couldn't get there or, if you're, trying to run a script against a number of servers that you've pulled back and you're using invoke command and you're saying here's 100 servers go run this command against them, but one of those servers may be offline, so you can't reach it for whatever reason you don't want that to be a terminating error, you want to get all the ones you want to see the error, the one that didn't work and then keep going on the rest of them.

B

Okay, that's the difference between right error and throw, but both of them send their output to the error stream and to the error variable.

B

Okay, demo, please tell me that plane.

A

That played that played all.

B

B

Batman: okay: let's go look at the code because it'll make more sense.

A

B

I have a demo for right output that I forgot. Let's go look at that. I told you not to use right output, there's your demo, okay back to writer, all right. Let's look at this function. Right, quick!

B

I'm loading, my demo error, I'm going to do get item of one and one doesn't exist. Neither does two does three whatever okay, so each one of these is going to do get item and we're gonna see what it does so, the first one is just gonna run and it's gonna do a try catch block. Actually I probably should put a little space in here, so you can see the difference between number or tesco number one test number two okay and then this one's part of that all right.

B

So when I run this thing, it's going to load up my function and hit weight debugger, because I wanted to make sure this thing falls. So I can step through it and then we go to demo error here we go okay, late debugger, I'm going to f11 my way through this thing, all right, so I'm on error here comes the first one.

B

Where's my here there it is, I forgot to scroll down in my console all right, so it says: okay, here's an error. Get item didn't work. You have an error on line. Number two cannot find the path okay. So now, if I go right here- and I type dollar error.

B

I'm gonna put zero in here. That is exactly the error. I just got exactly the same: okay. What? If I've got more errors in there? Do I have other errors. Yep. I've got other errors, because I've run this a little bit. So I've got errors in my console.

B

Okay, let's put ourself 11 and keep rolling so we're gonna. Do a try block on get item number two? Okay, there it goes. It did not go to catch. Why did it not go to catch on? Get item two well explained just a minute ago, if you're doing get child item or get item, those generate non-terminating errors. So if you have a non-terminating error in a try block, it's not going to go to catch, it did throw the error. So we saw the error because it said line five.

B

Here's my error- and if I go into my error now, my error variable I'm going to just up arrow because it's faster yeah there. It is it's still my line, five error, because that was my lightest error. Now my error number one is my line. Two error: you see how this is working.

B

Okay, so let's look at line number 12. Now I'm going to do git item 3, but this time I'm going to send it error action, stop okay, so I'll press f11 on there. Now it goes to the catch because I specified my error action to stop instead of continue.

B

Okay, the default action for get item is to continue. I'm now telling it if you run into an error, stop, and so my tried block now sends it to my catch block. So now I get right. Error item three not found okay. So now I'm controlling the message. That's going to my users now notice by doing right, error code is still going.

B

Okay, so now we're going to see the difference between that and throw here's get item. Three interaction stop goes into the catch when I hit f11 this time I get my error and we're done did not make it to the right post command.

B

Okay good time to pause, ask if there's any questions about this.

A

That's very interesting so go to try catch. You assume your code's with them. You're saying that it's some commands like get item will not uh ever go to catch. What other things? How do we figure out which command? Let's we'll go we'll go into every stream and not terminate and not a.

B

Good catch yeah, so good question: I don't know the answer to that because when you run get help on commandlets unless they put in there by the way, if this commandlet has an error, it's going to be a non-terminating error which I've never seen this before you, you just don't know so you have to run text. What I do is I put error. Action stop on every command for the most part, where I want to make sure a try, block moves to the catch block.

B

Now, there's something else we're going to talk about to how to do this, but that's one way to do it.

A

Because I always try to do, you know, create the failure scenario to make sure the failures work. So I would have caught that, but I wasn't even thinking about it and I'm sure that it's probably something other people may not think about a test out.

C

A

C

Cases most of the time you know the error action is silently continued. That is across the board now granted anybody can write whatever they want as their default option, but ninety percent of the time, it's typically cycling, continue and, as you said, right there in line 12, if you're, actually looking and you're trying to create this with the try catch, the probably the best practice is to do what he did. There is the say, hey air action. I want you to stop that way. It's not going to just automatically continue.

C

It's not going to silently continue because there are different error actions. So continue is there, so it will like tell you that it happened, but it will keep on going or you can say silence. You don't even tell me to happen and just keep on going so when you're, when you're working with that and you're trying to troubleshoot that it's best to actually use the air action option and then do that, but do that only where you need to.

B

Yeah I want to throw a little bit on there. The default is actually continue, not silently continue, because if his silent continued, you wouldn't see the error message, and there are times for that when, like, if you're doing a an if test- and you want to see whether something is there and if it's not there, you want particular code to run.

B

I like to use error action silently continue, because it'll still fail and move into the code area I want it to, but we won't see red text on screen because I'm expecting the code to handle that at that time- and I don't want my users to be worried that they got an error and they don't know why they got an error because it, and also that error, goes into the error stream. Just to be clear.

B

Any other questions before I move on.

B

Okay, let's move on, we got, we got one stream or two streams down. We got some more to do so. Let's talk about the best practices for the airstream right, quick and then we'll get on to the next stream, so errors are for displaying something that has failed. That's important, the reason I say this- and this is where we're talking about you know I'm getting opinionated in that we have errors for reasons and we have how these things get handled for a reason don't play around with that.

B

If you're having an error, send it to the error stream, do not set dollar error to null and clear out all the errors at the top of your script. Okay, that's abusive to your users to remove the errors that they may have needed without letting them know that you're doing that. When I see this in scripts and I see the same functions, I get a little girth face on that because I'm like no don't do that.

B

Just know that the errors that you're trying to deal with are at the top, so the last in first out principle does matter. Then you need to be watching for that. Okay, so so handle it. That way. Another point do not change the error. Action preference, so the error, action preference by default is continue, don't get in there and mess around with that. Don't change it to stop now. You could change it to stop, but I'm suggesting that you don't do that and I say: come at me: bro, okay, use error.

B

Action, stop to generate the terminating errors instead. Now nothing! Nothing is a hard fast rule on this. Okay, I will grant that if you're writing a function, setting error action, preference to stop, only changes, the function, scope and not the script scope or the console scope. Okay, so it's somewhat safe because it'll just change that inside your function, the good news about that is now you don't have to do. Error action. Stop on a really long script, where you've got a lot of commands.

B

So that's a that's a good idea, but I'm just I'm telling you this that you need to be careful and pay attention to where your scopes are.

A

B

Think you're gonna.

A

Go ahead mike, I was gonna, say I think you're gonna need to pause here. I think there's a few people that have some things they want to talk to you about. There.

B

A

Some commandlets out there, particularly a d that don't understand the concept of silently continue and the only way around that is to use error, action, preference and set it within the scope of where you're running that to to to have it. Not throw error messages out on the screen. That.

B

A

B

I've not seen that where I've done the error action onto it, so you're saying that when you do the dash error action, they don't honor that.

A

uh The silently continued, definitely I'm not sure about the other ones, and I think someone was talking about exchange being bad on that yeah exchange in older versions. um I remember 2010 and 2013 commandlets had that same problem, but exchange a d were very much, not honoring that we had to do the error preference equal, stop!

A

So, okay, but now it's just exchange online. So it's a little bit different, but a d is a very common one.

B

So I haven't seen that I have seen some odd behavior based on well. First of all, the 80 commandments are very odd in their behaviors anyway, so I'm not going to put it past them. um The the point is well taken that uh you need to test. You need to see how it works. I'm just telling you what I consider to be the best practice and again stephen's presentation, stephen slides stephen's opinion.

C

So to that point is yes best practices overall, yes, it should be that way, but there are edge cases and like everything in the world it all depends- and so you know he's one of those quirky things, but there are things that are just quirky about yourself, and I know that some of those things are on the list of things to fix the navy, but because they wrap a bunch of stuff and do a bunch of funky stuff they they were one of the first and you know because it's core it's gonna, be slow to change too.

A

It's important to bring up, though, because I just like robert said it's it's one that a lot of the new guys jump into right, ad and powershell, and something that I I definitely want to call out so, okay, yes, I do agree with the best part steven.

B

So if you're gonna do that, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it again: do it in a function? Okay, so put your error action preference in a function or, if you absolutely must do it in a script, gather the error, action preference first and put it into a variable.

B

So you know: do air action preference into my your stark preference right and then capture it and then, at the end of your script, set it back again watch out for if you've got, try catch and throws in the middle, because your throw is going to happen and it's not going to set the air action. Preference back and I'm just cautioning you about being abusive to your users. Don't do that.

A

Now, stephen, if you throw throw that into a finally block that should still run, even though you put in the throw.

B

Does it, yes, I thought throw tossed you out immediately because.

A

B

It's finally blocked it does. Okay, that's good it. Finally,.

A

Runs most of the time like if you reboot the machine and in the catch area that finally isn't going to catch it. Oh my god I made some. I made it that joke, um but continue on.

C

Hold on higher, so whatever scope you're in depending on how far you are, it will jump back up this. You know it's a big stack, and so that's the how it's working. So you know it's kind of a cs thing: computer science, kind of thing as far as stacks and cues, but it's a stack, so it's gonna throw to the next higher stack, whoever that might be.

B

We're gonna do this right now live how about that.

A

B

B

It did not write.

A

Host, I say corrected.

B

Yeah, I didn't know the answer to that. I've always thought that throw is effectively the same thing as uh right, error and return, which means it throws you completely out, so it doesn't make it to the finally, because throw is a terminating error in terminating errors. Is I'm done.

A

Interesting because, if, depending upon, where your readings on finally supposed to actually interrupt that and do something before going into catch, it's I need to play around with it.

C

So yeah because it's terminating and so it goes up to the higher stack which is go up and so yeah it gets to. Finally,.

B

So here's the other one I was talking about and not in my demo, but we're making it now is you do the right error and then you do a return. I would. I would expect this to do the same thing. So I'm going to update that and that did something completely different. Look at that.

A

So throws behavior and uh doing a return off of a right error. Work on different paths.

B

A

B

All right everyone's got food for thought. No.

A

Well hold on so I don't know if he still wants to ask it, but rick has been waiting to ask a question.

B

A

Pulled his hand down so rick babbitt, I don't know rick if you still had a question if someone answered it come on, I was on mute now. I was actually going to make comments about the ad command list.

A

I think how people are using them and the reason why they're wanting to get like to be able to catch an error for them, because then there's different ways that the scripts can be written with the active directory command list so that you don't have to do that. I think that would be interesting for for a talk. Actually, actually you should be writing them that way like if you don't want to be playing around with error action preference.

A

You should be writing them that way, but you need to then look at stuff being in the handstand, basically upside down backwards.

A

Here's one use case that I know of uh that some people might be thinking of is like if you're, if you're doing like get 80 user, arbit and and then arbeit doesn't exist in the directory and then you'll get an error right yeah, and then you want to wrap that within, like a try catch or something like that uh to be able to capture that, if that's the case, a different way to do, it is to use filter.

A

So I'll do like get ad user filter, open, curly, brace, sam account name equals quote: unquote our vavit right and curly brace, and then that way. If it doesn't exist, it just returns nothing. And so you, you base your logic on how uh whether or not you uh get uh a response.

A

So that's like one one use case that I can think of.

C

So I think in some fashion, you're right in there rick as far as writing, stuff, with the understanding of what the expectation is, and I think to you know jonathan's point and a couple. Other people is that a.d commandlets, don't necessarily like you know, work like everybody else, and so they do some funky things and they don't respect all the same rules that everywhere else, and so that's really the function and then, but to that, to that same point, is you can, as people have shown, that you can write around those problems?

C

And you can simply like you just described- is well not like right around it but write your your code. So it gets you different types of errors and those which will catch if you're trying to do a try catch, and so it's really in that mode of understanding what its limitations are and then also you know, because it's not completely intuitive and that's really the problem and that's part of my frustration is some of the you know: input handling, pipeline inputs and stuff like that.

C

It doesn't respect like everything else, and so it's it's just one of those things. That's it's unique, but it's also unique to ads.

A

That's true yeah yeah, I mean if I wanted to get a stopping error. uh You'd have to modify your command or that yeah right here have that parameter.

B

A

B

What's that, I.

A

B

Off of ad, because we all know ads kind of a dumpster fire, and so we can, we can get back to that at the end, because we're not even halfway through my slide deck here and we we've only made it through two streams. We haven't even finished this one. So if we could um back to steven's opinions, don't change the color of right error text.

B

Okay, errors are read, some people like to get in and play with their consoles. That's fine! If you want to do it for your console, but please don't change other people's consoles. I've seen someone say yeah. This is great, it's so nice! I have all my my error. Tests go to orange, like yeah, but orange, doesn't say error to someone who doesn't know that you tweaked it okay. So again, there's another come at me. Bro errors are red. We don't like to see the red, but red means something.

B

It's trying to give you information now, if you're, covering color blank red, doesn't mean a lot to you. I get that, but for everyone else this is a standard okay, so please don't modify standards, in other words, think of the children.

B

All right two streams down: we have a few together. The warning stream, so warning messages are not failures. That's the point. However, it's important enough to show an interactive user information that they need to know that may cause a problem, and the emphasis, as the color shows is on may may cause a problem. It's not necessarily a problem.

B

It can be used to prompt the user to see if they want to continue processing we're going to cover that later, but just keep that in your mind, is hey. You can have a warning and then you can ask the user what they want to do where you might see a warning message.

B

So I do I do a lot of stuff of the azure and the az module command lights will give you warnings on upcoming breaking changes.

B

This is a good use of a warning message, for example new, a z public ip address, and this is something I was doing right before we got started as I was loading one of these things up, so we could see it. Where did my window? Go? Oh great, it closed timed out and closed. Thank you, azure. Okay. I will spin that back up some other time, because I didn't grab a screenshot of it drat my demo, but if you run new az public ip address I'll, just tell you what it's doing.

B

It shows warning we're about to make breaking changes. So if you used to get your ip address using this method that it's going to change to this method, that's just how azure does it? What I like to do in mornings is well. We also have a demo, so I'm going to get to the demo okay. So let me continue on right. One right warning puts the data into the warning stream. Okay, so first thing you need to know that it does.

B

Is it prepends the message with the stream name, which is cool, so it'll, say warning? It doesn't require a change or any settings in order to display the output super cool.

B

That's loud, we're going to demo this thing again: don't worry, I'm not going to batman signal you for every time we switch the demo all right. Let's look at right one. Now this one's short run, it go.

B

Go to demo warning demo warning right. Warning bad jokes are something you get used to over time. They groan on you.

B

There's the output amazing huh notice that the warning stream at the beginning.

A

I'm not I'm seeing the slide screen.

B

A

Are yep, I think I'm.

C

The only one I see the.

A

B

Okay, all right, so it works. I hope that gets started yeah. I don't want you to miss my dad joke now, because I didn't hear any groans, though I feel your you. Let me down on that one buddy, I'm a mute all right, so you get used to them over time they grown on you notice. That's it didn't have to put any parameters on here. I just said right warning and some text: that's what it does pretty cool.

B

Okay back to my slideshow, I'm doing this best practice. So since this one's really short, we'll just jump to write the best practices on the same slide use warnings like other command. Let's do if you've seen a command like put warning on there pay attention to how those people are using it now we're hoping that they're following some kind of standard and they're doing it in a good job. If they aren't, then send them to me and I'll, try and straighten them out, okay or look at my scripts and how I use warnings.

B

Okay, the point is: give important information, that's not worthy of stopping the execution or storing the output into the error. Variable and increasing the error count.

B

That's really warning. Let's move on to the verbose string, one of my absolute favorites, because once I learned this, I started using it everywhere. It gives additional information that only when requested it's cool. That way, if your use of right verbose does require your code to be an advanced function.

B

Okay, so there's two ways to make your code an advanced function, adding commandlet binding at the top of your command and then adding parameter to any of the defined parameters. Okay, I'm going to show you this so that we kind of get this straightened out when we get to the demo part of it. Okay, but before I do that, I want to take a quick tangent on advanced function, common parameters, so what parameters are added to a function when it becomes advanced?

B

So if you haven't done this before as soon as you make it put the command binding on there or you add specific parameters to your parameter variables, then it adds these.

B

So you get verbose and debug and error action and warning action, and you can read so I don't have to read to you, but the parentheses ones are all the shortcuts.

B

So if you've ever seen, someone do a command and then they do dash ov and then a word after that they're using the out variable, alias okay, now note: only verbose and debug switches match the right command lines. So so far, we've talked about right output, right error, right warning. Here's right, verbose, we're on that one and we're about to go to write debug.

B

So here's a verbose and debug okay. So we're going to take note of that, because that matters there's some verbal stream caveats that you need to know about. You can change the verbose preference to output, the verbose stream content without the verbose switch or the code being an advanced function.

B

Please don't! Okay, don't do that to your users, it's going to confuse them! They're going to get verbose output. You can add the verbose switch to the right, verbose command to return the output instead. Okay, why?

B

Why would you put the verbose switch on a right, verbose command in your code? So again, please don't. The point is to do right. Verbose.

B

Let's see, I think I have the best practices slide. So I'm going to save that comment until I get to the best practices slide. Let's talk about actually how you do it. So the point is: is verbose stream via right, verbose, you use when you want to give the status of a script, update. Okay, for example, when you're looping through a bunch of items you want to show which item you're on, but if you're just running your console, you may not want that for regular.

B

So if you're having a you run a script, let's go back to my 100 servers. Example: it's running through everything's fine, but it seems to be taking longer than it should so you stop your script. You rerun your script with the dash verbose on there and now it starts telling you I'm on this server, I'm on this server, I'm on this server. So now you can see what's happening, so you can use right verbose instead of write host for information.

B

Only updates right host is going to put its content onto the console every time, because that's what right host does right, verbose is only going to put it on there. If you put the verbose switch on there, so you can have either the noisy version of the non-noisy version. That's the nice thing about it, okay, so here's back to my opinion.

B

When do you use right, verbose versus write, host? Consider your users experience so again, don't be abusive to your users. Don't let them think that your code is not working as well. So if a particular task that you're doing is going out and gathering a lot of information, then give them little hints that says: hey, I'm I'm on this step, I'm on this step.

B

Okay, I like to use right host for that, because it shows up on the console now again, we've already started with the the opinion of don jones. Saying you know right host is is bad okay, but I still think there's times for it.

B

I like to use right, verbose, more than write host, but there are times for it um based on how long a particular step takes that bullet item of what I was saying before: okay, let's get to the demo so that we can kind of make sense out of this verbose stream and it'll, be it'll, be more clear when you see it all right, so we'll just start by looking at it first and I'll kind of talk through so here's my first function, demo reverse verbose, one with commandlet binding a blank parameter block, because if you put command binding on there you must have a parameter block, even if it's blank and then it says right, verbose, number, two kind of does the same thing.

B

It's interesting! It's the same code. Okay, how I'm going to execute them down here is different, so we're going to see that and then dim over bus three notice. This one does not have commandment binding, but it does have a parameter setting above the parameter. Okay and then right, verbose.

B

The message all right, so, let's run this let's get get into here, oops I pushed all done that was f11. I needed f5. Okay, make sure I'm down at the bottom here. Okay, first, one is run dim over both one with the verbose switch goes up here and says: verbose.

B

Demos are cool excellent, just like I expected it to now, we'll go to number two look. What I'm doing here, I'm saying run demo verbose, 2 with the verbose switch and then redirect 4 into verbose text. Let's see what that does same same code as verbose one exactly the same. In fact, I probably should have just reused that, because I didn't I'll need to have two of them here notice. Nothing showed up on screen in the console. Okay down here, nothing showed up, but if I do get content on verbose text, I get.

B

Demos are cool. Also note this one says verbose because it gave us the stream name, but what actually went into the file was only the content.

B

Okay, let's get to number three now this one. A little different is that we actually have a parameter for the message and then it will write verbose the message, so you can do demo verbose and I put dash verbose on here and when I run that it gets to the message and it cuts out the message again. The point that I wanted to show you is that these have the commandment bindings and that's how they become advanced parameters.

B

This one has a specified parameter setting and this one now acts as an advanced command line if you've never seen that before it's kind of interesting.

A

So, by by adding the parameter there, even though it's empty, I pick up all the other bells and whistles that an advanced function brings.

B

That is correct, so if I do this, if I do down here since I've loaded this, I do demo verbose three we'll do three and I'll do dash I'll do control space, so we can see them all and, as you can see, I got all the common parameters, even though I didn't put command the binding on there.

A

So that's that's a little different topic than what you're talking about. But um what is: is there a downside to doing it that way, because, obviously everybody has always taught commandlet binding, advanced function.

B

Downside is exactly what you just said is if someone said it. If I took this code and think to yourself, ah that's not an advanced commander or that's not an advanced function, but because of the parameter here, then it acts as advanced. This is not best practice. I just wanted to show you that it can be done so that if you ever see it in the wild used by it.

B

Okay, all right, let's move, let's move out of there all right, so let's talk about best practices, so use right, verbose where you typically use inline comments. That's what I like to do so normally, where I would do pound. This block is now doing this, and this block is now doing this.

B

I tend to switch those over to right verbose because then, when you run the script and you put the verbose switch on there, you can go I'm at this point of the code, I'm at this point of the code, and you can just see it all happen as it goes through your code.

B

Okay, now note: this is more art than science. So I'm not going to tell you. This is the way to do it. You decide how much information you want to put on the screen. If you need the verbose output, then use it. If you need to give them a hint that something's happening, then maybe you want to do right host so that your user doesn't have to remember to do the verbose switch again art the cool I mean, not the cool.

B

The key is to don't annoy your users, so if you find it annoying, your users are going to find it annoying. Okay, so that's where it's art, not science, don't flood them with useless info, but do give relevant feedback. Okay, those are my best practice. Rules not really hard and fast rules prefer both stream.

B

Next step, I'm gonna I'm gonna get into this one and then I'm gonna check in and see. If we have more questions, because I know I'm starting to get kind of quick on these debug stream is to give debug information, but only when requested I've never used this stream. I don't remember ever seeing this stream used.

B

So if you have seen this stream used, please go ahead and give us some note in the chat. Now, if you've been in powershell a long time, you know why the debug stream exists.

B

It goes all the way back to 2.0 and I couldn't find out if it was in 1.0, but I think it was in 1.0. I just don't know. Okay, once integrated scripting environments became available, they replaced the need for the debug stream, because you can do what I'm basically doing in vs code. You can put breakpoints in your code. You can do the weight, debugger and it'll stop. You can work your way through it.

B

I just haven't ever seen a need for the debug stream doesn't mean that there isn't. I just haven't done it.

B

Debug stream, via right, debug, almost identical to the verbose it's used when you want to send debug information very similar to right, verbose and functionality, and let's take a look at it, this is going to look very familiar.

B

Okay, it has to be an advanced commandlet, doesn't work. Otherwise, here's your parameter right, debug, console debugging is not cool. You don't want to do console debugging and then debug two same thing: um I'm not even sure that I need to go through this because, it's frankly a virtual duplicate of right, verbose. First one you get the diva, oh I'm gonna! Do it, I'm gonna, do it anyway, just so you can see the reason I'm gonna do. That is because I want you to see the text notice how to put debug at the beginning.

B

That's it there's the main difference.

B

We're going to blast on through this, so this was me: writing the fifth stream into debug.txt and doing the git content on debug text. Now you can see that debug console debugging is not coming.

B

C

So, just to offer this input the only thing that I've ever used before is kind of, like only for my very provost, like you said it's similar to right, verbose, but it's like a secondary fiber rose. It's a it's a deeper level. Right verbose is that if I need to write stuff that that only I need to see, but then you know, right, verbose is for normal users to run when they need to, but verbose for debug is for. Definitely this is for debug purposes, and you don't put normal end user stuff in there.

C

You put like hey this variable. Was this: this variable was that you've got something. Definitely you do not put inside of great verbose, like hey the current version of this. Is you know that kind of thing? So that's what I saw in the past, but that was many years ago.

B

I'm just telling you I haven't used, it doesn't mean there's not good reasons, for it doesn't mean that your use of it is not amazing. I've never used it. But that's just me. Okay, but let's talk about some best practices for the the debug from the from the writer's standpoint is use vs code or ise.

B

You know if you want to get the information from your objects, get the information from your objects, putting stuff into debug stream. Okay, so you're not polluting your streams, but I don't know whether that's gaining you much or not. I can see where there's uses for it again, it's pretty pretty edge case stuff and seriously just use just use the ideas for your debugging. It's just a easier way to get through the information.

B

Speaking of information, let's talk about the information stream. The information stream was added in powershell 5 to stop killing puppies and someone. I saw someone posted the actual quote into the chat, so we can go back to that. If you want to go look for it, but it's don jones saying every time someone does write, host, kill some puppies all right. So it allows the capturing of informational messages because write host. You can't capture it, nothing.

B

You can do well, I say nothing, you can you can do um the journaling where you're capturing everything, but don't don't? Do it's not journaling, it's um transcript, so you can start transcript and it'll capture it. But that's an ugly message: don't do that. Okay, since right host output can't be captured, they invented the information string. So let's take a look at it by default by the way I find this weird, but it is the way it is by default. Write information doesn't write anything okay, that's what capture the output using the information variable?

B

Okay, so we're going to look at code that that will hopefully explain this better than my slide does. If you change the information action to continue, then you see it because by default, the information action for right information is silently continued. So even if you do well, let's actually do one right, quick just for for the for the grins for the lulls.

B

If you will we'll do text again and we'll pipe that to write out right information there we go, it does nothing, that's what I was talking about, but if you change the information action to continue, this is in my demo, but I like doing it this way too. Information action continue, and now you get the text.

B

So that was what was.

A

What was the information action before you set it to continue.

B

Okay: let's, uh let's pull that up dollar information preference silently, okay, so by default it does nothing. It just rolls right on by now this command right. Actually, this is in my my actual code demo, so I want to show you this okay.

B

So, let's let me press f5 and get this thing rolling and we're going to go to demo info 1 and it says: get child item present working directory.

B

Here's my files for this demonstration and then it's going to do write information done with information action continue and so just put done on screen. Okay, here's the next thing: it's going to do we're going to take demo info 1 and we're going to put it into results.

B

So here it goes notice, there's nothing! Nothing showed up on screen because I'm putting this in the results, variable and right information just popped on the screen. Now. Why is that? Because what goes into the results variable is the success stream, not the information stream, so the information stream popped on to the display, but the actual results we get. The results here is only the system. I o file info object and then, if we look at the results, you can see the files all right.

B

So I'm going to do this one more time here is we're going to redirect so we're going to go to dome info 2. There's the list. There's right information done notice how nothing shows up on screen.

B

Okay, now we're going to do demo info 2 we're going to redirect 6 into information text one more time around the block here and we'll get the content for the information and then put done in there now what happens if we combine those two streams using the stream redirect so we're going to redirect six into one and that's going to go into the results? Okay, so one more time through get child item that went into results.

B

Right, information done continue that went into results, and so now, when we look at the objects for results, we get two back. We get system, I o file info and an information record.

B

So then, when we look at that they're now combined together now, this is where I'm going to tell you or remind you that it's not always a good idea to return multiple types of objects in your code, because now you're going to have to handle two different types of objects: okay, because the again the point of the streams is to separate out your objects and in your success stream, you want to be very cognizant of what kinds of object you're putting into your success stream, so that you can then send those down a pipeline into another function that you've written and then act on that particular object.

B

Okay, that's the joy of pipelining is that you want to keep your objects very clean.

B

Any questions on that demo.

A

B

Let's talk about the best practices and then we're getting close to the finish here. So thank you for all hanging in there use write host for colors. That is my favorite thing about write host. Is it has the foreground color and the background color? So, if you're, trying to give information to your users and you're, trying to use visual distinctions, use, write host right information will not give you any colors, but right information can be used to capture the data, which is great because we want to capture the data for some of our information streams.

B

Okay, so you got to decide which- which am I going to do? Am I going to capture the data or I'm going to go for the colors?

B

That was really all the best practices I had for it, because I don't spend a lot of my time doing the right information, okay, I I'm either doing verbose or right host depending upon what it is, I'm trying to do and wait the pro progress stream, the what now?

B

Okay, I told you there was six streams, there's another one. This is the mystery stream. It's a bonus stream. Did you even know there was a progress stream?

B

It's used to communicate progress via the custom defined progress bar. It is also an unnumbered stream. In other words, you can't redirect the output.

B

Okay, that's interesting, guess what it has right progress, so you got six streams plus the bonus okay, when used when building of data may take a while. So that's what I use the right products for is to give information when something's going to take a while and consider the user experience. Okay, we're back to it's more art than science.

B

Okay. So let's look at a quick demo and by the way this demo is 100 theft.

B

I stole it completely out of the uh examples for write progress, so what it's going to do it says for each I and one to three put a right progress bar up here and then go to j one to five and do the right progress bar for that and then for k. Do one to ten and then do write progress for that, except at the end of this one good brief.

B

I just realized that they did a semicolon and a start sleep on this line and who wrote this help whatever so start sleep, 100 milliseconds and then I'm gonna output, this stuff to screen? Okay.

B

So let's run this, I don't have this broken up into individual functions, but I want you to see what this does on screen and I hope it comes across on the sharing look at that thing: hop around okay, so it's just building the dots and the different arrays here for group. One group, two group three and you kind of see what it's doing: okay, but because I've got right host right after write, progress, it's having to write the progress and then write to the host every time, it's actually better.

B

If you do it like this, where I'm going to define output, I'm going to have the same code, same everything and then over here on the output, I'm going to just add this in and then at the end, I'm going to output the output, as you can see when this one runs. Yes, I know I change the millisecond, but you'll see notice what this one's doing went by too fast. Let me slow that down a little bit.

B

I just realized that that was a bad experience. Let me try that again, okay, so here it goes going through these iterations and the sub steps, and then here's step the main step. Okay. Now it's not redrawing everything. It's just redrawing the progress. So this gives you a bet if you've ever done a right progress and you've you've seen it happen up and down, trying to figure out why it's because you're outputting information in the console at the same time, okay, just a little tip there.

B

I use write progress a lot, especially for long running things. It's just helpful to your user to see it right. Progress doesn't have something where you have a switch where you have to turn it on it. Just is part of your code, so when you put it in there just be aware that it's going to show up okay, it's not like right, verbose or right information. It's not like you can turn it on and turn it off. And yes, jonathan, I cheated because I was in a hurry. So uh best practice don't do this.

B

This is slow. I I just got busted sorry all right. Let me get that off screen real, quick, I'm tired, I'm gonna get more flaming from that all right. Let's finish this up, let's wind it down!

B

Yes, I know I should have used a proper background. Okay call to action, call to action, use the action parameters to change how a commandment responds. So, like error action, I showed you that one, the default value for error action is continue. So change it. If you need your try block to work, okay, write the error to the error stream and keep processing. That's what it does by default. Information action by default is silently continued, so you're not going to see anything it's kind of weird but hey, that's how it works.

B

So just be aware of that. So if you really want to see the information action, you better change that from silently continue and you can do an error action in line. So some do show the screen and some don't just pick which one you want to do. Write nothing save nothing! Okay.

B

So if you change the value to continue, you'll actually see your write information messages. Now this is the one I threw way back that you probably don't remember, because I've talked so much about it, but in warning action the default value is continued, so it always writes it and you see it what's cool. Is you can change this value to inquire and it'll actually pause the processing and prompt to see whether the user wants to continue? So you may get to a warning and go hey. This is a warning.

B

I don't know what you want to do. Do you want to keep going because this may break things farther down the script? So what do you want to do? And so the user can then decide how they want to do it again. This is the warning action, so you decide hey. I want to actually prompt with the user and if you want more details about the common parameters, here's the link to the document to get that done all right. So, which preference do you prefer?

B

Do you prefer get variable preference? Let's see what those are just. We want to see them, so I'm going to do get variable.

B

Star preference- and here are your preferences. So these are the defaults confirm is set to high debug is silent by the way. This is where you find all this information, so you can see what they are. You can change them. Okay, you can just say hey. I want my warning preference.

B

Equal, what did I say I want to do inquire.

B

I probably should put text around that so it'll actually work now I'll run it again and look at my preferences and now it's inquire so now, when I do right warning doing this all in the console that it would work the same in your script and I say, look out.

B

Now it's prompting me hey: do you want to keep going you've? Had this warning to look out? Okay, that's what it's doing there. Now I've set that on my console, so it's going to last until I keep until I restart my console or set it back so again, that's what I'm saying don't be abusive to your users by changing the defaults.

B

Put it in your function in this case. Yes, I want to continue here. We go.

B

I told you once I've told you a bunch of times now I've told you on a bullet, don't change the defaults seriously. Just don't use the scoping of powershell to your advantage. I'm also going to take this moment to say: please write functions rather than scripts. Even if your function is all your code up at the top for your function and then at the bottom. At the very end, is you calling the function that you just wrote to me?

B

That's a better experience for your users and it'll, give you better more controllable code than if you write it as a script, where it's now polluting your console with variables and other settings.

B

Okay, again, steven's opinion, stephen's presentation uh change the preference in the function. If you must and that's why it works. Well that way, this will not pollute the host scope. Okay, points to write down be thoughtful about your output. You want to pay attention to what you're giving the user so that they're happy with the product that they're working with also known as the stream of consciousness.

A

B

Don't cross the streams someone tried to steal my joke in the chat. I'm glad I'd done going to the presentation, because it's my joke. It's not your joke, don't steal! My jokes! Unless your code is fighting goes with the gozerian.

B

If your code is fighting goes with the gosarian, then you're allowed to cross the streams, okay other than that. Don't do that!

B

Give a hoot don't pollute al thanks! You for not polluting your console with bad data and all that remove wrinkles in your code with stream.

B

You want your output to look its best.

A

C

You're getting better.

A

Oh, they get better.

B

Do these jokes make you want to stream out loud? Maybe you should redirect your ire saying so we he he deliberately.

A

Lulls us into a sense false sense of security by.

B

A

A lot of dad jokes and then hits us with a last slide.

B

It's not the last slide, but it's closed. Don't play games with your output, be stream powered.

C

That was really bad.

B

But wait there's more. We have a logo.

A

B

For powershell stream is that an official logo? Well, it's official to me it's in my slides.

B

Alright, so this is the time at which I've got my slide for questions um for those of you that need to ditch out of here, and I want you to stay in touch with me. I'm on twitter at steven judd, I'm on discord at judd missile number 7741. Does anyone know what those numbers mean? I have no idea, I'm in the powershell bridge channel. You can find me on discord there um there's my linkedin.

B

If you want to follow me professionally, my professional approach does not have a ton of dad jokes, but it does have links to my other presentations, which does have a lot of dad jokes.

B

Someone might have noticed my icq number, I'm not actually on icq. Please don't try to hit me there, but can you see my low number nice? My blog any of you know css. You go look at my blog and you'll cry and it needs help, but you know I'm not a css person github, I will be putting the code and the presentation up on github so make it available. I'm sorry, I didn't have this done and already in the slide. Okay, oh I realized.

B

I just put sj url defense, because that was from my previous presentation and that's it you're welcome any questions.

A

Thank you, sir. That was very.

C

A

That was a very deep dive.

B

A

All right so we'll we'll we'll wrap it up here with this uh finishing up on the various streams and the right commandlets and how to use them correctly. uh We'll take a fireman final ask here for anybody who might want to bring up some topics, otherwise, we'll wrap this up. While we're waiting for some questions to come in, I will remind people who are watching the research trial. Powershell user group mitch's meets twice a month, the first and third wednesday of the month.

A

If you're watching this on youtube, you can find us at rtpsug.com we're on meetup. You can find us there. We would love to have you at our next meeting. Please find us. We would love you to join us steven. Thank you for taking the time to explain this stuff to us tonight, definitely made my life better. I understand more things about the various right commandlets in the streams I may cross the streams.

A

I may not, I'm not sure.

B

Hey you know what every once in a while, you gotta cross some streams.

A

All right so with that we're gonna, say good night thanks for joining us tonight, everyone.