Windows PowerShell Quick Reference

Capturing Output

There are several ways to capture the output of commands in PowerShell:

Capturing output in PowerShell
Command	Result
$variable = <Command>	Stores the objects produced by the PowerShell command into $variable.
$variable = <Command> | Out-String	Stores the visual representation of the PowerShell command into $variable. This is the PowerShell command after it’s been converted to human-readable output.
$variable = <Native Command>	Stores the (string) output of the native command into $variable. PowerShell stores this as a list of strings—one for each line of output from the native command.
<Command> -OutVariable variable	For most commands, stores the objects produced by the PowerShell command into $variable. The parameter -OutVariable can also be written -Ov
<Command> > <File>	Redirects the visual representation of the PowerShell (or standard output of a native command) into <File>, overwriting <File> if it exists. Errors are not captured by this redirection.
<Command> >> <File>	Redirects the visual representation of the PowerShell (or standard output of a native command) into <File>, appending to <File> if it exists. Errors are not captured by this redirection.
<Command> 2> <File>	Redirects the errors from the Powershell or native command into <File>, overwriting <File> if it exists.
<Command> 2>> <File>	Redirects the errors from the Powershell or native command into <File>, appending to <File> if it exists.
<Command> > <File> 2>&1	Redirects both the error and standard output streams ...