Error handling in Powershell

Hey there!

I have recently played around with an error handling, also using functions.

You can explicitly define the behaviour of the script and how it should handle errors using an $ErrorActionPreference variable. You will typically set it to either of following:

• Continue (default) – in this case an error will be displayed, but the script will attempt to continue
• Stop – the script will stop the execution and report an error
• SilentlyContinue – it will ignore the error (without displaying it) and continue execution

Good. But how about functions, exit (return) codes and error messages? I recently found the cmdlet Write-Error.

Take a look at one example how to do it:

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"

function test () {
   Write-Error "Testing failed!"
}

try {
   test
} catch {
   $err = $_.Exception.Message
   Write-Host "An error occured: $err"
}

 

Let me know if it helped you.

 

Cheers!

Robot(ICT) guy