Powershell write variable to stdout as running

Question

In my powershell script I have a variable which captures its commands output

$files= dosomething

so running dosomething alone will produce output to the stdout. My question is how do I get that same functionality out of my variable as its running? mostly as a way to see progress.

maybe best to run the command and then somehow capture that to a variable?

UPDATE 1:

here's the command I'm trying to monitor:

$remotefiles = rclone md5sum remote: --dry-run --max-age "$lastrun" --filter-from "P:\scripts\filter-file.txt"

UPDATE 2: running rclone md5sum remote: --dry-run --max-age "$lastrun" --filter-from "P:\scripts\filter-file.txt" directly produces output ...

Answer 1

Tee-Object saves command output in a file or variable and also sends it down the pipeline.

Get-Process notepad | Tee-Object -Variable proc | Select-Object processname,handles

ProcessName                              Handles
-----------                              -------
notepad                                  43
notepad                                  37
notepad                                  38
notepad                                  38

This example gets a list of the processes running on the computer, saves them to the $proc variable, and pipes them to Select-Object.

Answer 2

Out-Host will send output to the console without sending it down the pipe

Function Test-Output {
    param()
    $list = @(
        'Dogs',
        'Cats',
        'Monkeys'
    )

    $list | Out-Host
    $list | Select-Object -First 1
}

$output = Test-Output

# When running the line above Dogs, Cats, and Monkeys will display in the console
# Dogs
# Cats
# Monkeys

# However the variable $output will only contain 'Dogs'
$output
# Dogs