Как обработать ошибку powershell

В Powershell существует несколько уровней ошибок и несколько способов их обработать. Проблемы одного уровня (Non-Terminating Errors) можно решить с помощью привычных для Powershell команд. Другой уровень ошибок (Terminating Errors) решается с помощью исключений (Exceptions) стандартного, для большинства языков, блока в виде Try, Catch и Finally. 

Как Powershell обрабатывает ошибки

До рассмотрения основных методов посмотрим на теоретическую часть.

Автоматические переменные $Error

В Powershell существует множество переменных, которые создаются автоматически. Одна из таких переменных — $Error хранит в себе все ошибки за текущий сеанс PS. Например так я выведу количество ошибок и их сообщение за весь сеанс:

Get-TestTest
$Error
$Error.Count

При отсутствии каких либо ошибок мы бы получили пустой ответ, а счетчик будет равняться 0:

Переменная $Error являет массивом и мы можем по нему пройтись или обратиться по индексу что бы найти нужную ошибку:

$Error[0]

foreach ($item in $Error){$item}

Свойства объекта $Error

Так же как и все что создается в Powershell переменная $Error так же имеет свойства (дополнительную информацию) и методы. Названия свойств и методов можно увидеть через команду Get-Member:

$Error | Get-Member

Например, с помощью свойства InvocationInfo, мы можем вывести более структурный отчет об ошибки:

$Error[0].InvocationInfo

Методы объекта $Error

Например мы можем очистить логи ошибок используя clear:

$Error.clear()

Критические ошибки (Terminating Errors)

Критические (завершающие) ошибки останавливают работу скрипта. Например это может быть ошибка в названии командлета или параметра. В следующем примере команда должна была бы вернуть процессы «svchost» дважды, но из-за использования несуществующего параметра ‘—Error’ не выполнится вообще:

'svchost','svchost' | % {Get-Process -Name $PSItem} --Error 

Не критические ошибки (Non-Terminating Errors)

Не критические (не завершающие) ошибки не остановят работу скрипта полностью, но могут вывести сообщение об этом. Это могут быть ошибки не в самих командлетах Powershell, а в значениях, которые вы используете. На предыдущем примере мы можем допустить опечатку в названии процессов, но команда все равно продолжит работу:

'svchost111','svchost' | % {Get-Process -Name $PSItem}

Как видно у нас появилась информация о проблеме с первым процессом ‘svchost111’, так как его не существует. Обычный процесс ‘svchost’ он у нас вывелся корректно.

Параметр ErrorVariable

Если вы не хотите использовать автоматическую переменную $Error, то сможете определять свою переменную индивидуально для каждой команды. Эта переменная определяется в параметре ErrorVariable:

'svchost111','svchost' | % {Get-Process -Name $PSItem } -ErrorVariable my_err_var
$my_err_var

Переменная будет иметь те же свойства, что и автоматическая:

$my_err_var.InvocationInfo

Обработка некритических ошибок

У нас есть два способа определения последующих действий при ‘Non-Terminating Errors’. Это правило можно задать локально и глобально (в рамках сессии). Мы сможем полностью остановить работу скрипта или вообще отменить вывод ошибок.

Приоритет ошибок с $ErrorActionPreference

Еще одна встроенная переменная в Powershell $ErrorActionPreference глобально определяет что должно случится, если у нас появится обычная ошибка. По умолчанию это значение равно ‘Continue’, что значит «вывести информацию об ошибке и продолжить работу»:

$ErrorActionPreference

Если мы поменяем значение этой переменной на ‘Stop’, то поведение скриптов и команд будет аналогично критичным ошибкам. Вы можете убедиться в этом на прошлом скрипте с неверным именем процесса:

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
'svchost111','svchost' | % {Get-Process -Name $PSItem}

Т.е. скрипт был остановлен в самом начале. Значение переменной будет храниться до момента завершения сессии Powershell. При перезагрузке компьютера, например, вернется значение по умолчанию.

Ниже значение, которые мы можем установить в переменной $ErrorActionPreference:

• Continue — вывод ошибки и продолжение работы;
• Inquire — приостановит работу скрипта и спросит о дальнейших действиях;
• SilentlyContinue — скрипт продолжит свою работу без вывода ошибок;
• Stop — остановка скрипта при первой ошибке.

Самый частый параметр, который мне приходится использовать — SilentlyContinue:

$ErrorActionPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'
'svchost111','svchost' | % {Get-Process -Name $PSItem}

Использование параметра ErrorAction

Переменная $ErrorActionPreference указывает глобальный приоритет, но мы можем определить такую логику в рамках команды с параметром ErrorAction. Этот параметр имеет больший приоритет чем $ErrorActionPreference. В следующем примере, глобальная переменная определяет полную остановку скрипта, а в параметр ErrorAction говорит «не выводить ошибок и продолжить работу»:

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
'svchost111','svchost' | % {Get-Process -Name $PSItem -ErrorAction 'SilentlyContinue'}

Кроме ‘SilentlyContinue’ мы можем указывать те же параметры, что и в переменной $ErrorActionPreference. 

Значение Stop, в обоих случаях, делает ошибку критической.

Обработка критических ошибок и исключений с Try, Catch и Finally

Когда мы ожидаем получить какую-то ошибку и добавить логику нужно использовать Try и Catch. Например, если в вариантах выше мы определяли нужно ли нам отображать ошибку или останавливать скрипт, то теперь сможем изменить выполнение скрипта или команды вообще. Блок Try и Catch работает только с критическими ошибками и в случаях если $ErrorActionPreference или ErrorAction имеют значение Stop.

Например, если с помощью Powershell мы пытаемся подключиться к множеству компьютеров один из них может быть выключен — это приведет к ошибке. Так как эту ситуацию мы можем предвидеть, то мы можем обработать ее. Процесс обработки ошибок называется исключением (Exception).

Синтаксис и логика работы команды следующая:

try {
    # Пытаемся подключиться к компьютеру
}
catch [Имя исключения 1],[Имя исключения 2]{
    # Раз компьютер не доступен, сделать то-то
}
finally {
    # Блок, который выполняется в любом случае последним
}

Блок try мониторит ошибки и если она произойдет, то она добавится в переменную $Error и скрипт перейдет к блоку Catch. Так как ошибки могут быть разные (нет доступа, нет сети, блокирует правило фаервола и т.д.) то мы можем прописывать один блок Try и несколько Catch:

try {
    # Пытаемся подключится
}
catch ['Нет сети']['Блокирует фаервол']{
    # Записываем в файл
}
catch ['Нет прав на подключение']{
    # Подключаемся под другим пользователем
}

Сам блок finally — не обязательный и используется редко. Он выполняется самым последним, после try и catch и не имеет каких-то условий.

Catch для всех типов исключений

Как и было показано выше мы можем использовать блок Catch для конкретного типа ошибок, например при проблемах с доступом. Если в этом месте ничего не указывать — в этом блоке будут обрабатываться все варианты ошибок:

try {
   'svchost111','svchost' | % {Get-Process -Name $PSItem -ErrorAction 'Stop'}
}
catch {
   Write-Host "Какая-то неисправность" -ForegroundColor RED
}

Такой подход не рекомендуется использовать часто, так как вы можете пропустить что-то важное.

Мы можем вывести в блоке catch текст ошибки используя $PSItem.Exception:

try {
   'svchost111','svchost' | % {Get-Process -Name $PSItem -ErrorAction 'Stop'}
}
catch {
   Write-Host "Какая-то неисправность" -ForegroundColor RED
   $PSItem.Exception
}

Переменная $PSItem хранит информацию о текущей ошибке, а глобальная переменная $Error будет хранит информацию обо всех ошибках. Так, например, я выведу одну и ту же информацию:

$Error[0].Exception

Создание отдельных исключений

Что бы обработать отдельную ошибку сначала нужно найти ее имя. Это имя можно увидеть при получении свойств и методов у значения переменной $Error:

$Error[0].Exception | Get-Member

Так же сработает и в блоке Catch с $PSItem:

Для вывода только имени можно использовать свойство FullName:

$Error[0].Exception.GetType().FullName

Далее, это имя, мы вставляем в блок Catch:

try {
   'svchost111','svchost' | % {Get-Process -Name $PSItem -ErrorAction 'Stop'}
}
catch [Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.ProcessCommandException]{
   Write-Host "Произошла ошибка" -ForegroundColor RED
   $PSItem.Exception
}

Так же, как и было описано выше мы можем усложнять эти блоки как угодно указывая множество исключений в одном catch.

Выброс своих исключений

Иногда нужно создать свои собственные исключения. Например мы можем запретить добавлять через какой-то скрипт названия содержащие маленькие буквы или сотрудников без указания возраста и т.д. Способов создать такие ошибки — два и они тоже делятся на критические и обычные.

Выброс с throw

Throw — выбрасывает ошибку, которая останавливает работу скрипта. Этот тип ошибок относится к критическим. Например мы можем указать только текст для дополнительной информации:

$name = 'AD.1'

if ($name -match '.'){
   throw 'Запрещено использовать точки в названиях'
}

Если нужно, то мы можем использовать исключения, которые уже были созданы в Powershell:

$name = 'AD.1'

if ($name -like '*.*'){
   throw [System.IO.FileNotFoundException]'Запрещено использовать точки в названиях'
}

Использование Write-Error

Команда Write-Error работает так же, как и ключ ErrorAction. Мы можем просто отобразить какую-то ошибку и продолжить выполнение скрипта:

$names = @('CL1', 'AD.1', 'CL3')

foreach ($name in $names){
   if ($name -like '*.*'){
      Write-Error -Message 'Обычная ошибка'
   }
   else{
      $name
   }
}

При необходимости мы можем использовать параметр ErrorAction. Значения этого параметра были описаны выше. Мы можем указать значение ‘Stop’, что полностью остановит выполнение скрипта:

$names = @('CL1', 'AD.1', 'CL3')

foreach ($name in $names){
   if ($name -like '*.*'){
      Write-Error -Message 'Обычная ошибка' -ErrorAction 'Stop'
   }
   else{
      $name
   }
}

Отличие команды Write-Error с ключом ErrorAction от обычных команд в том, что мы можем указывать исключения в параметре Exception:

Write-Error -Message 'Обычная ошибка' -ErrorAction 'Stop'

Write-Error -Message 'Исключение' -Exception [System.IO.FileNotFoundException] -ErrorAction 'Stop'

В Exception мы так же можем указывать сообщение. При этом оно будет отображаться в переменной $Error:

Write-Error -Exception [System.IO.FileNotFoundException]'Моё сообщение'

…

Теги:

#powershell

#ошибки

You have had it happen before. You run a PowerShell script, and suddenly the console is full of errors. Did you know you can handle these errors in a much better way? Enter PowerShell try catch blocks!

Using error handling with PowerShell try catch blocks allows for managing and responding to these terminating errors. In this post, you will be introduced to PowerShell try catch blocks and learn how to handle specific exception messages.

Understanding PowerShell Try Catch Syntax

The PowerShell try catch block syntax is straightforward. It is composed of two sections enclosed in curly brackets. The first identified section is the try block, and the second section is the catch block.

try {
    # Command(s) to try
}
catch {
    # What to do with terminating errors
}

The try block can have as many statements in it as you want; however, keep the statements to as few as possible, probably just a single statement. The point of error handling is to work with one statement at a time and deal with anything that occurs from the error.

Here is an example of an error occurring in the PowerShell console. The command is creating a new file using the New-Item cmdlet and specifying a non-existent folder for Path.

If this command was in a script, the output wastes some screen space, and the problem may not be immediately visible. Using a PowerShell try catch block, you can manipulate the error output and make it more readable.

Here is the same New-Item command in a try catch block. Note that line 5 uses the -ErrorAction parameter with a value of Stop to the command. Not all errors are considered “terminating,” so sometimes you need to add this bit of code to terminate into the catch block properly.

try {
    New-Item -Path C:\doesnotexist `
        -Name myfile.txt `
        -ItemType File `
        -ErrorAction Stop
}
catch {
    Write-Warning -Message "Oops, ran into an issue"
}

Instead of a block of red angry-looking text, you have a simple warning message that it ran into an issue. The non-existent Path name along with forcing -ErrorAction Stop drops the logic into the catch block and displays the custom warning.

Adding the $Error Variable to Catch Output

While more readable, this is not very helpful. All you know is the command did not complete successfully, but you don’t know why. Instead of displaying my custom message, you can display the specific error message that occurred instead of the entire exception block.

When an error occurs in the try block, it is saved to the automatic variable named $Error. The $Error variable contains an array of recent errors, and you can reference the most recent error in the array at index 0.

try {
    New-Item -Path C:\doesnotexist `
        -Name myfile.txt `
        -ItemType File `
        -ErrorAction Stop
}
catch {
    Write-Warning $Error[0]
}

The warning output is now more descriptive showing that the command failed because it couldn’t find part of the path. This message was a part of our original error message but is now more concise.

Alternatively, you can save the incoming error to a variable using $_. The dollar sign + underscore in PowerShell indicates the current item in the pipeline. In this case, the current item is the error message coming out of the try block.

Once you have saved this incoming message, you use it in a custom output message, like so:

try {
    New-Item -Path C:\doesnotexist `
        -Name myfile.txt `
        -ItemType File `
        -ErrorAction Stop
}
catch {
    $message = $_
    Write-Warning "Something happened! $message"
}

Adding Exception Messages to Catch Blocks

You can also use multiple catch blocks to handle specific errors differently. This example displays two different custom messages:

• One for if the path does not exist
• One for if an illegal character is used in the name

Note that the following screenshot shows the script running twice with two different commands in the try block. Each command, catch block, and the orange and green arrows indicate the final output.

Looking at lines 14-16, there is a third catch block without an exception message. This is a “catch-all” block that will run if the error does not match any other exceptions. If you are running this script and seeing the message in the last catch block, you know the error is not related to an illegal character in the file name or part of the path not being valid.

Now how do you find the exception messages to use in the first two catch blocks? You find it by looking at the different information attached to the $Error variable. After a failed command occurs, you can run $Error[0].Exception.GetType().FullName to view the exception message for the last error that occurred.

Going back to the PowerShell console, rerun the New-Item command with a non-existent path, then run the $Error command to find the exception message.

The red text immediately following the failed command also contains the exception message but does not contain which module it is from. Looking at the $Error variable shows the full message to be used for a catch block.

Getting Exception Messages in PowerShell 7

PowerShell version 7 introduced the Get-Error command. This command displays the most recent error from the current session. After encountering an error, run Get-Error to show the exception type to use in the catch block.

Summary

Using PowerShell try catch blocks gives additional power to handle errors in a script and take different actions based on the error. The catch block can display more than just an error message. It can contain logic that will resolve the error and continue executing the rest of the script.

Do you have any tips on using try/catch blocks? Leave a comment below or find me on Twitter or LinkedIn for additional discussion.

Enjoyed this article? Check out more of my PowerShell articles here!

References:

Microsoft Docs: About Try Catch Finally
Microsoft Docs: About Automatic Variables ($Error)
Microsoft Blog: Understanding Non-Terminating Errors in PowerShell

Error handling is just part of life when it comes to writing code. We can often check and validate conditions for expected behavior. When the unexpected happens, we turn to exception handling. You can easily handle exceptions generated by other people’s code or you can generate your own exceptions for others to handle.

Index

• Index
• Basic terminology
  • Exception
  • Throw and Catch
  • The call stack
  • Terminating and non-terminating errors
  • Swallowing an exception
• Basic command syntax
  • Throw
    • Write-Error -ErrorAction Stop
    • Cmdlet -ErrorAction Stop
  • Try/Catch
  • Try/Finally
  • Try/Catch/Finally
• $PSItem
  • PSItem.ToString()
  • $PSItem.InvocationInfo
  • $PSItem.ScriptStackTrace
  • $PSItem.Exception
    • $PSItem.Exception.Message
    • $PSItem.Exception.InnerException
    • $PSItem.Exception.StackTrace
• Working with exceptions
  • Catching typed exceptions
  • Catch multiple types at once
  • Throwing typed exceptions
    • Write-Error -Exception
    • The big list of .Net exceptions
  • Exceptions are objects
  • Re-throwing an exception
    • Re-throwing a new exception
    • $PSCmdlet.ThrowTerminatingError()
• Try can create terminating errors
  • $PSCmdlet.ThrowTerminatingError() inside try/catch
  • Public function templates
• Trap
• Closing remarks

Basic terminology

We need to cover some basic terms before we jump into this one.

Exception

An Exception is like an event that is created when normal error handling can not deal with the issue. Trying to divide a number by zero or running out of memory are examples of something that will create an exception. Sometimes the author of the code you are using will create exceptions for certain issues when they happen.

Throw and Catch

When an exception happens, we say that an exception is thrown. To handle a thrown exception, you need to catch it. If an exception is thrown and it is not caught by something, the script will stop executing.

The call stack

The call stack is the list of functions that have called each other. When a function is called, it gets added to the stack or the top of the list. When the function exits or returns, it will be removed from the stack.

When an exception is thrown, that call stack is checked in order for an exception handler to catch it.

Terminating and non-terminating errors

An exception is generally a terminating error. A thrown exception will either be caught or it will terminate the current execution. By default, a non-terminating error is generated by Write-Error and it adds an error to the output stream without throwing an exception.

I point this out because Write-Error and other non-terminating errors will not trigger the catch.

Swallowing an exception

This is when you catch an error just to suppress it. Do this with caution because it can make troubleshooting issues very difficult.

Basic command syntax

Here is a quick overview of the basic exception handling syntax used in PowerShell.

Throw

To create our own exception event, we throw an exception with the throw keyword.

function Do-Something
{
    throw "Bad thing happened"
}

This creates a runtime exception that is a terminating error. It will be handled by a catch in a calling function or exit the script with a message like this.

PS:> Do-Something

Bad thing happened
At line:1 char:1
+ throw "Bad thing happened"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : OperationStopped: (Bad thing happened:String) [], RuntimeException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Bad thing happened

Write-Error -ErrorAction Stop

I mentioned that Write-Error does not throw a terminating error by default. If you specify -ErrorAction Stop then Write-Errorgenerates a terminating error that can be handled with a catch.

Write-Error -Message "Houston, we have a problem." -ErrorAction Stop

Thank you to Lee Daily for reminding about using -ErrorAction Stop this way.

Cmdlet -ErrorAction Stop

If you specify -ErrorAction Stop on any advanced function or Cmdlet, it will turn all Write-Error statements into terminating errors that will stop execution or that can be handled by a catch.

Do-Something -ErrorAction Stop

Try/Catch

The way exception handling works in PowerShell (and many other languages) is that you first try a section of code and if it throws an error, you can catch it. Here is a quick sample.

try
{
    Do-Something
}
catch
{
    Write-Output "Something threw an exception"
}

try
{
    Do-Something -ErrorAction Stop
}
catch
{
    Write-Output "Something threw an exception or used Write-Error"
}

The catch script only runs if there is a terminating error. If the try executes correctly, then it will skip over the catch.

Try/Finally

Sometimes you don’t need to handle an error but still need some code to execute if an exception happens or not. A finally script does exactly that.

Take a look at this example:

$command = [System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand]::New(queryString, connection)
$command.Connection.Open()
$command.ExecuteNonQuery()
$command.Connection.Close()

Any time you open or connect to a resource, you should close it. If the ExecuteNonQuery() throws an exception, the connection will not get closed. Here is the same code inside a try/finally block.

$command = [System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand]::New(queryString, connection)
try
{
    $command.Connection.Open()
    $command.ExecuteNonQuery()
}
finally
{
    $command.Connection.Close()
}

In this example, the connection will get closed if there is an error. It will also get closed if there is no error. The finally script will run every time.

Because you are not catching the exception, it will still get propagated up the call stack.

Try/Catch/Finally

It is perfectly valid to use catch and finally together. Most of the time you will use one or the other, but you may find scenarios where you will use both.

$PSItem

Now that we got the basics out of the way, we can dig a little deeper.

Inside the catch block, there is an automatic variable ($PSItem or $_) of type ErrorRecord that contains the details about the exception. Here is a quick overview of some of the key properties.

For these examples, I used an invalid path in ReadAllText to generate this exception.

[System.IO.File]::ReadAllText( '\\test\no\filefound.log')

PSItem.ToString()

This will give you the cleanest message to use in logging and general output. ToString() is automatically called if $PSItem is placed inside a string.

catch
{
    Write-Output "Ran into an issue: $($PSItem.ToString())"
}

catch
{
    Write-Output "Ran into an issue: $PSItem"
}

$PSItem.InvocationInfo

This property contains additional information collected by PowerShell about the function or script where the exception was thrown. Here is the InvocationInfo from the sample exception that I created.

PS:> $PSItem.InvocationInfo | Format-List *

MyCommand             : Get-Resource
BoundParameters       : {}
UnboundArguments      : {}
ScriptLineNumber      : 5
OffsetInLine          : 5
ScriptName            : C:\blog\throwerror.ps1
Line                  :     Get-Resource
PositionMessage       : At C:\blog\throwerror.ps1:5 char:5
                        +     Get-Resource
                        +     ~~~~~~~~~~~~
PSScriptRoot          : C:\blog
PSCommandPath         : C:\blog\throwerror.ps1
InvocationName        : Get-Resource

The important details here show the ScriptName, the Line of code and the ScriptLineNumber where the invocation started.

$PSItem.ScriptStackTrace

This property will show the order of function calls that got you to the code where the exception was generated.

PS:> $PSItem.ScriptStackTrace
at Get-Resource, C:\blog\throwerror.ps1: line 13
at Do-Something, C:\blog\throwerror.ps1: line 5
at <ScriptBlock>, C:\blog\throwerror.ps1: line 18

I am only making calls to functions in the same script but this would track the calls if multiple scripts were involved.

$PSItem.Exception

This is the actual exception that was thrown.

$PSItem.Exception.Message

This is the general message that describes the exception and is a good starting point when troubleshooting. Most exceptions have a default message but can also be set to something custom when the exception is thrown.

PS:> $PSItem.Exception.Message

Exception calling "ReadAllText" with "1" argument(s): "The network path was not found."

This is also the message returned when calling $PSItem.ToString() if there was not one set on the ErrorRecord.

$PSItem.Exception.InnerException

Exceptions can contain inner exceptions. This is often the case when the code you are calling catches an exception and throws a different exception. They will place the original exception inside the new exception.

PS:> $PSItem.Exception.InnerExceptionMessage
The network path was not found.

I will revisit this later when I talk about re-throwing exceptions.

$PSItem.Exception.StackTrace

This is the StackTrace for the exception. I showed a ScriptStackTrace above, but this one is for the calls to managed code.

at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath, Boolean checkHost)
at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath, Boolean checkHost)
at System.IO.StreamReader..ctor(String path, Encoding encoding, Boolean detectEncodingFromByteOrderMarks, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean checkHost)
at System.IO.File.InternalReadAllText(String path, Encoding encoding, Boolean checkHost)
at CallSite.Target(Closure , CallSite , Type , String )

You will only get this stack trace when the event is thrown from managed code. I am calling a .Net framework function directly so that is all we can see in this example. Generally when you are looking at a stack trace, you are looking for where your code stops and the system calls begin.

Working with exceptions

There is more to exceptions than the basic syntax and exception properties.

Catching typed exceptions

You can be selective with the exceptions that you catch. Exceptions have a type and you can specify the type of exception you want to catch.

try
{
    Do-Something -Path $path
}
catch [System.IO.FileNotFoundException]
{
    Write-Output "Could not find $path"
}
catch [System.IO.IOException]
{
     Write-Output "IO error with the file: $path"
}

The exception type is checked for each catch block until one is found that matches your exception. It is important to realize that exceptions can inherit from other exceptions. In the example above, FileNotFoundException inherits from IOException. So if the IOException was first, then it would get called instead. Only one catch block will be invoked even if there are multiple matches.

If we had a System.IO.PathTooLongException then the IOException would match but if we had a InsufficientMemoryException then nothing would catch it and it would propagate up the stack.

Catch multiple types at once

It is possible to catch multiple exception types with the same catch statement.

try
{
    Do-Something -Path $path -ErrorAction Stop
}
catch [System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException],[System.IO.FileNotFoundException]
{
    Write-Output "The path or file was not found: [$path]"
}
catch [System.IO.IOException]
{
    Write-Output "IO error with the file: [$path]"
}

Thank you /u/Sheppard_Ra for suggesting this addition.

Throwing typed exceptions

You can throw typed exceptions in PowerShell. Instead of calling throw with a string:

throw "Could not find: $path"

Use an exception accelerator like this:

throw [System.IO.FileNotFoundException] "Could not find: $path"

But you have to specify a message when you do it that way.

You can also create a new instance of an exception to be thrown. The message is optional when you do this because the system has default messages for all built in exceptions.

throw [System.IO.FileNotFoundException]::new()
throw [System.IO.FileNotFoundException]::new("Could not find path: $path")

If you are not yet using PowerShell 5.0, you will have to use the older New-Object approach.

throw (New-Object -TypeName System.IO.FileNotFoundException )
throw (New-Object -TypeName System.IO.FileNotFoundException -ArgumentList "Could not find path: $path")

By using a typed exception, you (or others) can catch the exception by the type as mentioned in the previous section.

Write-Error -Exception

We can add these typed exceptions to Write-Error and we can still catch the errors by exception type. Use Write-Error like in these examples:

# with normal message
Write-Error -Message "Could not find path: $path" -Exception ([System.IO.FileNotFoundException]::new()) -ErrorAction Stop

# With message inside new exception
Write-Error -Exception ([System.IO.FileNotFoundException]::new("Could not find path: $path")) -ErrorAction Stop

# Pre PS 5.0
Write-Error -Exception ([System.IO.FileNotFoundException]"Could not find path: $path") -ErrorAction Stop

Write-Error -Message "Could not find path: $path" -Exception ( New-Object -TypeName System.IO.FileNotFoundException ) -ErrorAction Stop

Then we can catch it like this:

catch [System.IO.FileNotFoundException]
{
    Write-Log $PSItem.ToString()
}

The big list of .Net exceptions

I compiled a master list with the help of the Reddit/r/PowerShell community that contains hundreds of .Net exceptions to complement this post.

• The big list of .Net exceptions

I start by searching that list for exceptions that feel like they would be a good fit for my situation. You should try to use exceptions in the base System namespace.

Exceptions are objects

If you start using a lot of typed exceptions, remember that they are objects. Different exceptions have different constructors and properties. If we look at the documentation for System.IO.FileNotFoundException, we will see that we can pass in a message and a file path.

[System.IO.FileNotFoundException]::new("Could not find file", $path)

And it has a FileName property that exposes that file path.

catch [System.IO.FileNotFoundException]
{
    Write-Output $PSItem.Exception.FileName
}

You will have to consult the .Net documentation for other constructors and object properties.

Re-throwing an exception

If all you are going to do in your catch block is throw the same exception, then don’t catch it. You should only catch an exception that you plan to handle or perform some action when it happens.

There are times where you want to perform an action on an exception but re-throw the exception so something downstream can deal with it. We could write a message or log the problem close to where we discover it but handle the issue further up the stack.

catch
{
    Write-Log $PSItem.ToString()
    throw $PSItem
}

Interestingly enough, we can call throw from within the catch and it will re-throw the current exception.

catch
{
    Write-Log $PSItem.ToString()
    throw
}

We want to re-throw the exception to preserve the original execution information like source script and line number. If we throw a new exception at this point it will hide where the exception started.

Re-throwing a new exception

If you catch an exception but you want to throw a different one, then you should nest the original exception inside the new one. This allows someone down the stack to access it as the $PSItem.Exception.InnerException.

catch
{
    throw [System.MissingFieldException]::new('Could not access field',$PSItem.Exception)
}

$PSCmdlet.ThrowTerminatingError()

The one thing that I don’t like about using throw for raw exceptions is that the error message points at the throw statement and indicates that line is where the problem is.

Unable to find the specified file.
At line:31 char:9
+         throw [System.IO.FileNotFoundException]::new()
+         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : OperationStopped: (:) [], FileNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Unable to find the specified file.

Having the error message tell me that my script is broken because I called throw on line 31 is a bad message for users of your script to see. It does not tell them anything useful.

Dexter Dhami pointed out that I can use ThrowTerminatingError() to correct that.

$PSCmdlet.ThrowTerminatingError(
    [System.Management.Automation.ErrorRecord]::new(
        ([System.IO.FileNotFoundException]"Could not find $Path"),
        'My.ID',
        [System.Management.Automation.ErrorCategory]::OpenError,
        $MyObject
    )
)

If we assume that ThrowTerminatingError() was called inside a function called Get-Resource, then this is the error that we would see.

Get-Resource : Could not find C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference
Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\.NETPortable\v4.6\System.IO.xml
At line:6 char:5
+     Get-Resource -Path $Path
+     ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : OpenError: (:) [Get-Resource], FileNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : My.ID,Get-Resource

Do you see how it points to the Get-Resource function as the source of the problem? That tells the user something useful.

Because $PSItem is an ErrorRecord, we can also use ThrowTerminatingError this way to re-throw.

catch
{
    $PSCmdlet.ThrowTerminatingError($PSItem)
}

This will change the source of the error to the Cmdlet and hide the internals of your function from the users of your Cmdlet.

Try can create terminating errors

Kirk Munro points out that some exceptions are only terminating errors when executed inside a try/catch block. Here is the example he gave me that generates a divide by zero runtime exception.

function Do-Something { 1/(1-1) }

Then invoke it like this to see it generate the error and still output the message.

&{ Do-Something; Write-Output "We did it. Send Email" }

But by placing that same code inside a try/catch, we see something else happen.

try
{
    &{ Do-Something; Write-Output "We did it. Send Email" }
}
catch
{
    Write-Output "Notify Admin to fix error and send email"
}

We see the error become a terminating error and not output the first message. What I don’t like about this one is that you can have this code in a function and it will act differently if someone is using a try/catch.

I have not ran into issues with this myself but it is corner case to be aware of.

$PSCmdlet.ThrowTerminatingError() inside try/catch

One nuance of $PSCmdlet.ThrowTerminatingError() is that it creates a terminating error within your Cmdlet but it turns into a non-terminating error after it leaves your Cmdlet. This leaves the burden on the caller of your function to decide how to handle the error. They can turn it back into a terminating error by using -ErrorAction Stop or calling it from within a try{...}catch{...}.

Public function templates

One last take a way I had with my conversation with Kirk Munro was that he places a try{...}catch{...} around every begin, process and end block in all of his advanced functions. In those generic catch blocks, he as a single line using $PSCmdlet.ThrowTerminatingError($PSitem) to deal with all exceptions leaving his functions.

function Do-Something
{
    [cmdletbinding()]
    param()

    process
    {
        try
        {
            ...
        }
        catch
        {
            $PSCmdlet.ThrowTerminatingError($PSitem)
        }
    }
}

Because everything is in a try statement within his functions, everything acts consistently. This also gives clean errors to the end user that hides the internal code from the generated error.

Trap

I focused on the try/catch aspect of exceptions. But there is one legacy feature I need to mention before we wrap this up.

A trap is placed in a script or function to catch all exceptions that happen in that scope. When an exception happens, the code in the trap will get executed and then the normal code will continue. If multiple exceptions happen, then the trap will get called over and over.

trap
{
    Write-Log $PSItem.ToString()
}

throw [System.Exception]::new('first')
throw [System.Exception]::new('second')
throw [System.Exception]::new('third')

I personally never adopted this approach but I can see the value in admin or controller scripts that will log any and all exceptions, then still continues to execute.

Adding proper exception handling to your scripts will not only make them more stable, but it will also make it easier for you to troubleshoot those exceptions.

I spent a lot of time talking throw because it is a core concept when talking about exception handling. PowerShell also gave us Write-Error that handles all the situations where you would use throw. So don’t think that you need to be using throw after reading this.

Now that I have taken the time to write about exception handling in this detail, I am going to switch over to using Write-Error -Stop to generate errors in my code. I am also going to take Kirk’s advice and make ThrowTerminatingError my goto exception handler for every funciton.