What is the PowerShell Write-Host?

The Write-Host produces a customized displayed output to a host or console. We'll cover its syntax, inputs, outputs, and parameters. We'll wrap it up with a few examples.

Syntax

Inputs

Instead of the -Object parameter, the object can alternatively be piped as an input to Write-Host.

Outputs

The Write-Host doesn't return any objects but displays them to the host or console.

Parameters

• -BackgroundColor : This colors the background behind the text, which has no default value.

• -ForegroundColor: This colors the text, which has no default color. The available colors are the same as the colors for -BackgroundColor.
• -NoNewline: Applying this parameter will result in the next Write-Host call displaying its output next to the first call. No newline nor space is added after the first output.
• -Object: This is the object(s) to display. If it is a collection, then its elements are separated by a space character. This can be overridden with the separator parameter. This can alternatively be supplied as an input to Write-Host.
• -Separator: This is the separator string to insert between objects in the output.

Example 1

Let's take a look at this line.

• ("Hello", "World"): This is the object as the input. This will be printed according to the other parameters. Alternatively, we can supply this object by using the -Object parameter, i.e. -Object ("Hello", "World") .
• -ForegroundColor White: This colors the text white.
• -BackgroundColor DarkRed: This colors the background dark red.
• -separator ", ": The separator between the elements "Hello" and "World" is a comma and a space character.

Try out the command in the terminal below.

Example 2

Let's take a look at this line.

• "Hello" -NoNewline: This will print "Hello". The -noNewline parameter means this call of Write-Host will not add a newline at the end of its output. We can write multiple lines to PowerShell by using "shift" + "enter".
• Write-Host "World":This will print "World".

Try out the command in the terminal below.

Example 3

Let's take a look at this line.

• (1,2,3): It's the object which will be formatted with spaces between each number, i.e., "1 2 3".
• 6>: This is the redirection operator which refers to the information stream. The output is "1 2 3" in a log.txt file, which will be created if it doesn't exist. The command (Get-ChildItem).FullNamecan be used to see the file created.