Professional Windows® PowerShell for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1

Part IV: Automating Administration

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The Out-File cmdlet is used to append the bulk-newmailbox.log file with the contents of a

combination of variables that comprise the error message to be added to the log. These variables are

specified by the

InputObject parameter followed by the variables ’ names, separated by commas.

The

$blankline variable defined earlier in the script adds a line of dashes to identify the beginning of

an error message in the log. The

$errorString variable adds the error string identifying the user. The

$err[0] variable adds the specific error message generated by New-Mailbox . Note that $err is an

array, therefore to extract the error message it contains you must specify the first element in the array by

enclosing the index number (the first element is always 0) in square brackets. Finally, another

$blankline variable is used to add a line of dashes to mark the end of the error message.

After the error message is output to the log file, the

$errorTotal variable is incremented by 1 . This is

accomplished using the addition assignment operator (

+= ), which instructs Windows PowerShell to

assign a new value that is the current value plus 1.

If ($err -ne $null)

{

$errorString = “[ERROR]: Processing user $($user.name) failed with the

following error:”

Out-File $logfile -Append -Inputobject $blankLine, `

$errorString, $err[0], $blankLine