'How to write to debug stream with PowerShell Core so it's captured by SysInternals DBGVIEW.EXE

I have scores of scripts that use the OutputDebugString Windows API to output meaningful state information so that when they're running in Production, I can pull up the SysInternals debug viewer and see what all is happening.

When PowerShell Core 7 comes out, I'd like to move my scripts over, so I can take advantage of new features. I expected that this Windows-specific code would work as long as I am running Pwsh.exe on Windows, but I was wrong.

Write-Debug doesn't help at all.

Is there a cross-platform supported way to output messages that, on Windows, can be read by Debug Viewer?

FWIW, here's the code I've been using for a very long time:

$VB = @"
'http://www.pinvoke.net/default.asp
Public Class WinAPI
    <System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("kernel32.dll")> _
    Public Shared Sub OutputDebugString(ByVal lpOutputString As String)
    End Sub
End Class
"@

Add-Type $VB -Language Visualbasic

function Write-DebugMessage([string]$Message)
{
    $Msg = "[$Script:ScriptHelperAppName] $Message"
    [WinAPI]::OutputDebugString($Msg)
    Write-Verbose $Msg
}
powershell-core


Solution 1:[1]

OK, so this was embarrassingly simple. It never occurred to me that pwsh.exe would be able to compile one .Net language but not another.

I just converted the .Net code to C# and it works fine.

$WinAPI = @"
    public class WinAPI
    {
    [System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = System.Runtime.InteropServices.CharSet.Auto)]
    public static extern void OutputDebugString(string message);
    }
"@

Add-Type $WinAPI -Language CSharp

[WinAPI]::OutputDebugString("C# Test")

Solution 2:[2]

A builtin way:

[System.Diagnostics.Debug]::WriteLine('hello')

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 Kevin Buchan
Solution 2 Dess

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