Trapping Powershell Error in a function - powershell

Question

I'm having a bit of trouble preventing a certain error message from bubbling up from a function to my main routine's 'Catch'. I would like to have my function react to a particular error, then do something, and continue processing as usual without alerting my main routine that there was an error. Currently, if the file this script is trying to read is in use (being written to), it will write a System.IO.IOException error to my log. But sometimes I expect this error to occur and it isn't an issue and I don't want to fill my log with these type of errors. I would expect from the code below that the checkFileLock function would catch the error, return 0 to the findErrorInFile function, and no error would be caught to my error log.
Function findErrorsInFile{
param(
[string]$dir,
[string]$file,
[String]$errorCode
)
If((Get-Item $($dir + "`\" + $file)) -is [System.IO.DirectoryInfo]){ #we dont want to look at directories, only files
}Else{
If($(checkFileLock -filePath $($dir + "`\" + $file))){
$reader = New-Object System.IO.StreamReader($($dir + "`\" + $file))
$content = $reader.ReadToEnd()
$results = $content | select-string -Pattern $errorCode #if there is no regex match (no matching error code found), then the string $results will be == $null
If($results){
Return 1 #we found the error in the file
}Else{
Return 0 #no error found in the file
}
}Else{
Return 0 #The file was being written to, we will skip it and assume no error. This is rare.
}
}
}
Function checkFileLock{
param(
[String]$filePath
)
try{
$openFile = New-Object System.IO.FileInfo $filePath
$testStream = $openFile.Open([System.IO.FileMode]::Open, [System.IO.FileAccess]::ReadWrite, [System.IO.FileShare]::None) #try to open a filestream
If($testStream){ #If the filestream opens, then it isn't locked
$testStream.Close() #close the filestream
}
return $false #File is not locked
}
catch{
return $true #File is locked
}
}
#### START MAIN PROCESS ####
Try{
if($(findErrorsInFile -dir 'somepath' -file 'somefilename' -errorcode 'abc')){
write-host "found something"
}else{
write-host "didn't find anything"
}
}
Catch{
$_.Exception.ToString() >> mylogfile.txt
}

Answer 1

try/catch blocks only catch terminating errors. Is your code generating a terminating or non-terminating error?
ArcSet has highlighted essentially what is required: force a non-terminating error to be a terminating error. I suspect it needs to be added to this line, if allowed:
$testStream = $openFile.Open([System.IO.FileMode]::Open, [System.IO.FileAccess]::ReadWrite, [System.IO.FileShare]::None) -ErrorAction Stop
Edit - solution as -ErrorAction not an accepted parameter
I tried the above and it's not allowed. An alternative is to set the $ErrorActionPreference to Stop. This will affect all errors, so recommend reverting. Someone with more experience using System.IO.FileInfo objects may have a more elegant solution.
try{
$currentErrorSetting = $ErrorActionPreference
$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
$openFile = New-Object System.IO.FileInfo $filePath
$testStream = $openFile.Open([System.IO.FileMode]::Open, [System.IO.FileAccess]::ReadWrite, [System.IO.FileShare]::None) #try to open a filestream
If($testStream){ #If the filestream opens, then it isn't locked
$testStream.Close() #close the filestream
}
$ErrorActionPreference = $currentErrorSetting
return $false #File is not locked
}
catch{
$ErrorActionPreference = $currentErrorSetting
return $true #File is locked
}

Answer 2

Use to force a catch
-ErrorAction Stop
use to suppress a error
[Command with error] | out-null