Displaying Errors in PowerShell 7 - It Gets Better

In a recent blog post, I described the new approach taken in PowerShell 7 to displaying errors. In that post, I concentrated on the new look and feel of error messages as well as the use of $ErrorView built-in variable. One thing I missed in that post was the new look for run time errors.

To demonstrate the new method of displaying run time errors, consider this script:

Ok - nothing overly exciting but that's not the point. The script should generate two errors.

In Windows PowerShell (OR if you are running PowerShell 7 with $ErrorView set to "NormalView"), running this script looks like this:

That old familiar Wall of Red Ink! Hard to see the wood for the trees. But you can see the information if you read.

Now - PowerShell 7,. if you are set $ErrorView to "ConciseView" and rerun the script you still get the terrors (or course!), but PowerShell displays them like this:

I hope you'd agree this is a great improvement in displaying runtime errors. And you can always use the new Get-Error command to get all the nitty-gritty if you need it.

As I said in that prior post, I have always loved how PowerShell displays error messaged. I have enough practice to read through that first Wall of Red Ink to see the errors quickly and easily. PowerShell 7 just makes significantly easier.