add-content produces stream not readable

Question

I have a PowerShell script that dumps a gazillion lines to a csv file while processing a very large XML.

During the while read of the xml reader I write each line to a csv file like so:

  $newline | add-content -path $csv_file

This works for 99% but occasionally I see in the log "add-content: stream was not readable" for 1 or 2 items out of gazillions, I presume because it is busy writing the past line to it.

Any resolution?

like so: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26820590/how-can-i-use-xmlreader-in-powershell-to-stream-big-huge-xml-files — edelwater, Dec 09 '14 at 03:45
is `$newline` just a string? Does the script fail always for the same item or is it random? — Micky Balladelli, Dec 09 '14 at 06:11
like i said above only intermediate, i guess when the output stream is busy — edelwater, Dec 15 '14 at 00:42
so... how to nail it down with a try catch? when i would use a try catch it display me the exception... which is exactly what i now have. so that is no resolution i think. — edelwater, Dec 15 '14 at 00:43

score 12 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 02 '15 at 09:58

12

Its an old post, but I run into a similar problem (using Set-Content instead of Add-Content). In my case, the WriteAllText Method solved that issue.

This should solve it for you:

[System.IO.File]::AppendAllText($csv_file,$newline)

answered Oct 02 '15 at 09:58

Martin Brandl

56,134
13
133
172

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 29 '20 at 17:41

4

Here is a PowerShell approach if you don't want to call the windows API. Put in a try catch block within a do loop to retry until successful.

    $isWritten = $false

    do {
        try {
            Add-Content -Path $csv_file -Value $newline -ErrorAction Stop
            $isWritten = $true
        }
        catch {
        }
    } until ( $isWritten )
}

answered Jan 29 '20 at 17:41

Jim

692
7
15

This is 5 years later and im totally outside of that project long ago, but it looks like something i will add to all entries where add-content is used. Maybe even add max 5 retries. Maybe by default wrap Add-Content. – edelwater Feb 02 '20 at 20:42

add-content produces stream not readable

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