Powershell - Using Write-Progress to show console output from an executable?

Question

I have a Windows executable which I run from powershell using:

& $command | Out-Default

The command can take several minutes to run and will periodically output messages to the console to show it's status. When I run this executable through powershell using the above style, I see the messages that the executables outputs shown in the powershell window. It looks ok, but I'd like to begin using Write-Progress to show the status of the executing command.

Is there any way to dynamically feed the output of this executable (as it runs) to Write-Progress so that it can show a progress bar with the message set to the last line of output from the executable?

Can you provide sample output? There's no way for Write-Progress to know how far along the exe is. As far as I know, you would need to parse the output to calculate some sort of percentage from it. — Chad Baldwin
– Chad Baldwin, Commented Dec 14, 2020 at 6:36
Thanks, but I think the accepted answer below covers what I need. I am not concerned with percentages or calculating progress. I just want to be able to pipe each line of the executables output to write-progress so that it keeps the caller up to date with what's happening (basically moving the output from stdout to write-progress). Accepted answer seems to do the trick! — DaveUK
– DaveUK, Commented Dec 14, 2020 at 23:17

Mathias R. Jessen · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-14 11:06:48Z

1

Relaying standard output messages as progress status updates can be done by simply piping the output from the executable to ForEach-Object and passing it to Write-Progress:

function Invoke-WithProgress
{
  param([string]$Path)

  $Actvity = "Executing '$Path'..."

  # This one is optional
  Write-Progress -Activity $Actvity -Status "Starting out!"

  & $Path |%{
    # Provide each new line of output as a status update
    Write-Progress -Activity $Actvity -Status $_
  }

  # Complete the progress actvity
  Write-Progress -Activity $Actvity -Completed
}

Invoke-WithProgress $command

answered Dec 14, 2020 at 11:06

Mathias R. Jessen

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