Often scripts need to log what they do, and PowerShell scripters invest a lot of thought and time on logging information to text files.
As an alternative, you can easily reuse the work invested by Microsoft: PowerShell can use the event log system to log information. To test-drive, create a new event log using the code below. This part requires Administrator privileges (writing to the log does not):
#requires -RunAsAdministrator # name for your log $LogName = 'PowerShellPrivateLog' # size (must be dividable by 64KB) $Size = 10MB # specify a list of names that you'd use as source for your events $SourceNames = 'Logon','Work','Misc','Test','Debug' New-EventLog -LogName $LogName -Source $SourceNames Limit-EventLog -LogName $LogName -MaximumSize $Size -OverflowAction OverwriteAsNeeded
Once the log is in place, any user can write to the log file:
PS> Write-EventLog -LogName PowerShellPrivateLog -Message 'Script Started' -Source Work -EntryType Information -EventId 1
PS> Write-EventLog -LogName PowerShellPrivateLog -Message 'Something went wrong!' -Source Work -EntryType Error -EventId 1
PS> Get-EventLog -LogName PowerShellPrivateLog | ft -AutoSize
Index Time EntryType Source InstanceID Message
----- ---- --------- ------ ---------- -------
2 Jan 30 21:57 Error Work 1 Something went wrong!
1 Jan 30 21:57 Information Work 1 Script Started
-Source must be one of the names that you specified as legal sources when you created the log. One advantage of using this technique is that you can use Get-EventLog to easily analyze your log entries.
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