This is a very simple module. It exports one important command: Format-Error
and a handful of formatting commands:
ConvertTo-CategoryErrorView
ConvertTo-NormalErrorView
ConvertTo-SimpleErrorView
ConvertTo-FullErrorView
Install-Module ErrorView
When it's imported, it sets PowerShell's global $ErrorView
variable to "Simple" and provides an implementation as ConvertTo-SimpleErrorView
. More importantly, it allows you to write your own ErrorView! For example you could write a function or script ConvertTo-SingleLineErrorView
and then set the preference variable $ErrorView = "SingleLine"
, or even set it as you import the ErrorView module:
Import-Module ErrorView -Args SingleLine
NOTE: by default, there is no "SingleLine" view in the ErrorView module. The default after importing the module is the "Simple" error view, which is currently a 2-line view.
The Format-Error
command lets you change the view temporarily to look at more details of errors, and even has a -Recurse switch to let error views show details of inner exceptions. If you have set your view to Simple (which is the default after importing the module), you can see the Normal view for the previous error by just running Format-Error
. To see more than one error, you can look at the previous 5 errors like: $error[0..4] | Format-Error
As stated above, the ErrorView module allows you to write your own formats. Here's an example, and a few pointers:
function ConvertTo-SingleLineErrorView {
param( [System.Management.Automation.ErrorRecord]$InputObject )
-join @(
$originInfo = &{ Set-StrictMode -Version 1; $InputObject.OriginInfo }
if (($null -ne $originInfo) -and ($null -ne $originInfo.PSComputerName)) {
"[" + $originInfo.PSComputerName + "]: "
}
$errorDetails = &{ Set-StrictMode -Version 1; $InputObject.ErrorDetails }
if (($null -ne $errorDetails) -and ($null -ne $errorDetails.Message) -and ($InputObject.FullyQualifiedErrorId -ne "NativeCommandErrorMessage")) {
$errorDetails.Message
} else {
$InputObject.Exception.Message
}
if ($ErrorViewRecurse) {
$Prefix = "`n Exception: "
$Exception = &{ Set-StrictMode -Version 1; $InputObject.Exception }
do {
$Prefix + $Exception.GetType().FullName
$Prefix = "`n InnerException: "
} while ($Exception = $Exception.InnerException)
}
)
}
ConvertTo
verb and "ErrorView" noun, with your view name as the prefix.InputObject
parameter of type System.Management.Automation.ErrorRecord
$ErrorViewRecurse
which is set by Format-Error -Recurse