Formatting the verbose output of a Remove-Item command

Question

I have the following command:

Get-ChildItem $build_path `
    -Include *.bak, *.orig, *.txt, *.chirp.config `
    -Recurse | Remove-Item -Verbose

to clear some files from the build folder of a VS solution. I use the Verbose switch so that I can see which files are being deleted. It works fine but the output is too verbose:

VERBOSE: Performing operation "Remove File" on Target "R:\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\SomeProject\SomeProject.Web.build\App_Readme\glimpse.mvc3.readme.txt".
VERBOSE: Performing operation "Remove File" on Target "R:\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\SomeProject\SomeProject.Web.build\App_Readme\glimpse.readme.txt".

I just need to see something like that:

Removing file \App_Readme\glimpse.mvc3.readme.txt".
Removing file \App_Readme\glimpse.readme.txt".
...

I know i can do this with a foreach statement and a Write-Host command, but I believe it can be done with some pipelining or something. Any ideas?

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 29 '11 at 14:12

Using ForEach-Object is pretty straightforward:

Get-ChildItem $build_path `
    -Include *.bak, *.orig, *.txt, *.chirp.config `
    -Recurse | foreach{ "Removing file $($_.FullName)"; Remove-Item $_}

As @user978511 pointed out, using the verbose output is more complicated:

$ps = [PowerShell]::Create()

$null = $ps.AddScript(@'
    Get-ChildItem $build_path `
        -Include *.bak, *.orig, *.txt, *.chirp.config `
        -Recurse | Remove-Item -Verbose
'@)

$ps.Invoke()
$ps.Streams.Verbose -replace '(.*)Target "(.*)"(.*)','Removing File $2'

`FullName` is required. `Remove-Item $_.FullName;` is actually do the job without exception. — mammadalius, Nov 15 '21 at 13:53

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 19 '17 at 00:24

This is a few years too late but it might help someone else who stumbles upon this like I did so I'll provide it anyway.

I would try the file deletion and then report on success or failure. See below:

$FileList = $build_path `
    -Include *.bak, *.orig, *.txt, *.chirp.config `
    -Recurse

foreach ($File in $FileList)
{
    Try
    {
        Remove-Item $File.FullName -Force -ErrorAction Stop
        Write-Output "Deleted: $($File.Parent)\$($File.Name)"
    }
    Catch
    {
        Write-Output "Error deleting: $($File.Parent)\$($File.Name); Error Message: $($_.Exception.Message)"
    }
}

If you wanted to both output to console and log to a file you can use Tee-Object at the end of each line starting with Write-Output above.

| Tee-Object -FilePath $your_log_file -Append

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 29 '11 at 14:49

In PowerShell 3.0 you can write the Verbose stream to the output stream (e.g 4>&1) and then replace the message:

Get-ChildItem $build_path `
    -Include *.bak, *.orig, *.txt, *.chirp.config `
    -Recurse | Remove-Item -Verbose 4>&1 | Foreach-Object{ `
        Write-Host ($_.Message -replace'(.*)Target "(.*)"(.*)','Removing File $2') -ForegroundColor Yellow
}

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

1

To be able to modify the message you need first to cath the output that is not that easy. You can refer to answer on this page: Powershell Invoke-Sqlcmd capture verbose output to catch the output. From there on you can modify the message and show it in your format, but foreach options looks easier to me

edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

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answered Dec 29 '11 at 13:57

Andrey Marchuk

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Formatting the verbose output of a Remove-Item command

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