-ErrorAction update

PowerShell Team

Responding to  my blog entry on -ErrorAction HERE,  Jon Newman reminded me that the reason we didn’t use the term IGNORE for -ErrorAction was that we don’t really ignore the error.  We still record it in $ERROR.

He also reminded me that I should have talked about $ErrorActionPreference.  This variable defines the action that will occur if the user does NOT specify what to do on the commandline.  Check it out:

PS>$ErrorActionPreference
Continue
PS>Stop-Process 13,23
Stop-Process : Cannot find a process with the process identifier 13.
At line:1 char:13
+ Stop-Process <<<<  13,23
Stop-Process : Cannot find a process with the process identifier 23.
At line:1 char:13
+ Stop-Process <<<<  13,23
PS>$ErrorActionPreference ="SilentlyContinue"
PS>Stop-Process 13,23
PS>$ErrorActionPreference ="Stop"
PS>Stop-Process 13,23
Stop-Process : Command execution stopped because the preference variable "ErrorActionPreference" or common parameter i
set to Stop: Cannot find a process with the process identifier 13.
At line:1 char:13
+ Stop-Process <<<<  13,23
PS>$ErrorActionPreference ="Inquire"
PS>Stop-Process 13,23

Confirm
Cannot find a process with the process identifier 13.
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [H] Halt Command  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "Y"): h
Stop-Process : Command execution stopped because the user selected the Halt option.
At line:1 char:13
+ Stop-Process <<<<  13,23

Enjoy!

Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]
Windows Management Partner Architect
Visit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at:    http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShell
Visit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at:  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx

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