Recently, I was asked to make some changes to lots of users in Active Directory. For output, they wanted a log of everything that was changed and a log of where changes failed. Of course, I wanted a third log with verbose output of everything that was happening so, if need be, I could go back and fix anything.
Another thing I wanted to do was not write 5 times a second. Rather than slow down the process of making changes to users, I wanted to collect strings for the logs and write out every time I collected X number of strings.
To do this, I created a new Type using C# code. I’ve been reading Windows PowerShell for Developers
Here is the code I came up with…
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Add-type -TypeDefinition @" using System.Collections; public class Logger { public System.Collections.ArrayList Entries; public int Count; public int MaxLines; public string LogFile; public Logger(){ Entries = new System.Collections.ArrayList(); Count = 0; MaxLines = 5; LogFile = ""; } public void Add(string str) { Entries.Add(str); Count++; if (Count >= MaxLines) { AppendLog(); } } private void AppendLog() { if (! ([string]::isNullOrEmpty(LogFile)) ) { using (System.IO.StreamWriter file = new System.IO.StreamWriter(LogFile, true)) { foreach (string entry in Entries) { file.WriteLine(entry); } } Entries.Clear(); Count = 0; } } public void Flush() { AppendLog(); } public void setLogFile(string file) { LogFile = file; } public void setMaxLines(int max) { MaxLines = max; } } "@ |
This type compiles a “Logger” object which has a few properties and a few methods.
Logger Properties
| Type | Name | Description |
| Int | count | the count of strings currently collected |
| Int | MaxLines | Number of lines (strings) to collect before being forced to write to the file. |
| Sting | LogFile | the logfile to write to (including path). |
Logger Methods
| Name | Description |
| Logger (Constructor) | Sets default values for the object |
| Add | Adds a string to the object. All strings will be stored until either a “flush” command is called or the ‘maxLines’ limit is reached. |
| AppendLog | Appends the collection of strings to the specified log file |
| Flush | Writes all currently collected strings to the log file. |
| SetLogFile | Sets the logfile to be written to. |
| SetMaxLines | Sets the maximum number of lines to store until being forced to write to the log file. |
Example usage
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PS C:\> $logger = new-object logger PS C:\> $logger |ft -auto Entries Count MaxLines LogFile ------- ----- -------- ------- {} 0 5 PS C:\> $logger.setMaxLines(10) PS C:\> $logger |ft -auto Entries Count MaxLines LogFile ------- ----- -------- ------- {} 0 10 PS C:\> (1..9) |% { $logger.Add("$_") } PS C:\> $logger |ft -auto Entries Count MaxLines LogFile ------- ----- -------- ------- {1, 2, 3, 4...} 9 10 PS C:\> $logger.setLogFile("C:\temp\log02.log") PS C:\> $logger.Add("end") PS C:\> $logger |ft -auto Entries Count MaxLines LogFile ------- ----- -------- ------- {} 0 10 C:\temp\log02.log PS C:\> gc $logger.LogFile 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 end PS C:\> |
Results
As a result of this, I was able to add this type to the script I was creating and create 3 logger objects:
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# Debug logging $logVerbose = new-object Logger $logVerbose.setMaxLines(10) $logVerbose.setLogFile("$pwd\Verbose.log") # Change logging $logChanges = new-object Logger $logChanges.setMaxLines(5) $logChanges.setLogFile("$pwd\Changes.log") # Failed changes logging $logFailedChanges = new-object Logger $logFailedChanges.setMaxLines(5) $logFailedChanges.setLogFile("$pwd\FailedChanges.log") |
Logging to any one log was easy, just use the example above. If I wanted to log to all the logs, like setting the start point for the running of the script I would do something like this:
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$commonLogString = (& $logPrefix ) + "" $commonLogString += (& $logPrefix ) + "***********************`r`n" $commonLogString += (& $logPrefix ) + "SCRIPT START`r`n" $commonLogString += (& $logPrefix ) + "***********************`r`n" $commonLogString += (& $logPrefix ) + "`r`n" $commonLogString += (& $logPrefix ) + "Script Options:`r`n" $commonLogString += (& $logPrefix ) + "-----------------------`r`n" $commonLogString += (& $logPrefix ) + "Option 1: $Opt1`r`n" $commonLogString += (& $logPrefix ) + "Option 2: $Opt2`r`n" $commonLogString += (& $logPrefix ) + "Option 3: $Opt3`r`n" $commonLogString += (& $logPrefix ) + "-----------------------`r`n" #$commonLogString += (& $logPrefix ) + "`r`n" $logVerbose.Add($commonLogString) $logChanges.Add($commonLogString) $logFailedChanges.Add($commonLogString) |
The $logPrefix was a scriptblock I specified earlier on as
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$logPrefix = {get-date -format "[ MM/dd/yy HH:mm:ss ] "} |
This way each line wold have a date/time header.
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