Write a string to the display, optionally customizing the output. Output can be to any host but is typically the console screen.
Syntax
Write-Host [[-object] Object] [-noNewLine] [-separator Object]
[-foregroundcolor ConsoleColor] [-backgroundColor ConsoleColour]
[CommonParameters]
Key
-object Object
Object to display, typically a string.
-noNewLine
Do not end with a newline character.
-separator
String to output between objects displayed on the console.
-foregroundcolor ConsoleColour
The text colour.
-backgroundcolor ConsoleColour
Background colour.
ConsoleColours:
Black, DarkBlue, DarkGreen, DarkCyan, DarkRed, DarkMagenta, DarkYellow,
Gray, DarkGray, Blue, Green, Cyan, Red, Magenta, Yellow, White.
Starting in PowerShell 5.0, Write-Host also acts as a wrapper for Write-Information. You can now use Write-Host to emit output to the information stream, but the $InformationPreference preference variable and InformationAction common parameters do not affect Write-Host messages.
So in effect Write-Host is always set to Continue and will always display, unless stream 6 is redirected.
Standard PowerShell output will trim/wrap output lines to match the width of the parent console window -1
Write-Host bypasses this step and writes directly to stdout.
Write-host by default adds a single space separator between items, to remove that you must specify an empty string '' as the separator.
Output a message:
PS C:\> Write-Host "Hello World 123" -foregroundcolor green
Output a message & variable value:
PS C:\> Write-Host "message" $variable -foregroundcolor red
If stream 6 is redirected to Null there is no output:
PS C:\> Write-Host "Hello World 123" 6>$null
Run a function to display some text:
PS C:\> Function Test-function { Write-Host "here is some text" }
PS C:\> Test-function
here is some text
If we assign the function to a variable, the function runs and the text is displayed, it is not absorbed by the pipeline:
$result = Test-function
Display text in specific colours:
PS C:\> Write-Host "The quick brown fox jumped" -foregroundcolor DarkGreen -backgroundcolor white
PS C:\> Write-Host -ForeGroundColor Red "some text in red" -nonewline
Display several variables concatenated together with no separation character:
PS C:\> Write-Host $one $two -separator ''
firstsecond
“In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love” ~ Marc Chagall
Clear-Host - Clear the screen.
Out-Host - Send output to the host.
Write-Debug - Write a debug message to the host display.
Write-Information - Write to the information data stream (6).
Write-Output - Write an object to the pipeline.
Write-Warning - Write a warning message.