Equivalent for tail -f output\worker*.log in Powershell - powershell

Question

I need to output several logfiles - while they are written - to the shell.
In the unix version of my script this is achieved by tail -f output\worker*.log. Note the wildcard.
In Powershell I tried Get-Content -Path "output\worker*.log" -Wait, but this only prints the first logfile it can find to the shell.
For completion, here is my code where i call my program:
foreach ($worker in $workers)
{
Write-Host " Start $worker in background"
$block = {& $args[0] $args[1] $args[2] $args[3] $args[4] $args[5] $args[6] 2> $args[7] > $args[8]}
start-job -name $worker -scriptblock $block -argumentlist `
"$strPath\worker\bin\win32\php.exe", `
"-q", `
"-c", `
"$strPath\worker\conf\php_win32.ini", `
"$strPath\worker\bin\os-independant\logfilefilter\logfilefilter.php", `
"-f", `
"$strPath\worker\$worker\conf\logfilefilter-$worker.xml", `
"$strPath\output\$worker-error.log", `
"$strPath\output\$worker.log"
}
Get-Content -Path "output\worker*.log" -Wait
In my test case there are 8 workers and logfiles( output\worker01.log, output\worker02.log, output\worker03.log, output\worker04.log, output\worker05.log, output\worker06.log, output\worker07.log, output\worker08.log )
Is there a workaround to output all these logfiles? Or is it possible to duplicate the stdout stream from the background process to print it in the shell?

Answer 1

You can duplicate the the output streams by reading them directly from the output buffers of the child jobs.
Here's a demo script. Note that for the Verbose output, I'm removing output from the buffer as it's read, so that it doesn't get re-displayed on subsequent reads. This doesn't appear to have any affect on the Receive Job buffers for the job. If you do a Receive Job on it after the script completes, you'll still get the Verbose output all over again.
$sb = {
$VerbosePreference = 'Continue'
for ($i = 1; $i -le 100; $i++ )
{
start-sleep -Milliseconds 150
Write-Verbose "$(get-date)"
write-progress -activity "Search in Progress" -status "$i% Complete:" -percentcomplete $i;}
}
$job = start-job -ScriptBlock $sb
$verbose = ($job.ChildJobs[0].Verbose)
While ($job.State -ne 'Completed')
{
$job.ChildJobs |
foreach {
Start-Sleep -seconds 1
$Pct_Complete = $_.Progress | select -last 1 | select -ExpandProperty PercentComplete
Write-Host "`rBackground job $($_.ID) is $Pct_Complete percent completed." -ForegroundColor Cyan
While ($verbose.count){
Write-Host $verbose[0] -ForegroundColor Gray
$verbose.removeat(0)}
}
}
write-host "`nDone!"