Formatting the verbose output of a Remove-Item command - powershell

Question

I have the following command:
Get-ChildItem $build_path `
-Include *.bak, *.orig, *.txt, *.chirp.config `
-Recurse | Remove-Item -Verbose
to clear some files from the build folder of a VS solution. I use the Verbose switch so that I can see which files are being deleted. It works fine but the output is too verbose:
VERBOSE: Performing operation "Remove File" on Target "R:\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\SomeProject\SomeProject.Web.build\App_Readme\glimpse.mvc3.readme.txt".
VERBOSE: Performing operation "Remove File" on Target "R:\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\SomeProject\SomeProject.Web.build\App_Readme\glimpse.readme.txt".
I just need to see something like that:
Removing file \App_Readme\glimpse.mvc3.readme.txt".
Removing file \App_Readme\glimpse.readme.txt".
...
I know i can do this with a foreach statement and a Write-Host command, but I believe it can be done with some pipelining or something. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Using ForEach-Object is pretty straightforward:
Get-ChildItem $build_path `
-Include *.bak, *.orig, *.txt, *.chirp.config `
-Recurse | foreach{ "Removing file $($_.FullName)"; Remove-Item $_}
As #user978511 pointed out, using the verbose output is more complicated:
$ps = [PowerShell]::Create()
$null = $ps.AddScript(#'
Get-ChildItem $build_path `
-Include *.bak, *.orig, *.txt, *.chirp.config `
-Recurse | Remove-Item -Verbose
'#)
$ps.Invoke()
$ps.Streams.Verbose -replace '(.*)Target "(.*)"(.*)','Removing File $2'

Answer 2

In PowerShell 3.0 you can write the Verbose stream to the output stream (e.g 4>&1) and then replace the message:
Get-ChildItem $build_path `
-Include *.bak, *.orig, *.txt, *.chirp.config `
-Recurse | Remove-Item -Verbose 4>&1 | Foreach-Object{ `
Write-Host ($_.Message -replace'(.*)Target "(.*)"(.*)','Removing File $2') -ForegroundColor Yellow
}

Answer 3

This is a few years too late but it might help someone else who stumbles upon this like I did so I'll provide it anyway.
I would try the file deletion and then report on success or failure. See below:
$FileList = $build_path `
-Include *.bak, *.orig, *.txt, *.chirp.config `
-Recurse
foreach ($File in $FileList)
{
Try
{
Remove-Item $File.FullName -Force -ErrorAction Stop
Write-Output "Deleted: $($File.Parent)\$($File.Name)"
}
Catch
{
Write-Output "Error deleting: $($File.Parent)\$($File.Name); Error Message: $($_.Exception.Message)"
}
}
If you wanted to both output to console and log to a file you can use Tee-Object at the end of each line starting with Write-Output above.
| Tee-Object -FilePath $your_log_file -Append

Answer 4

To be able to modify the message you need first to cath the output that is not that easy. You can refer to answer on this page:
Powershell Invoke-Sqlcmd capture verbose output
to catch the output. From there on you can modify the message and show it in your format, but foreach options looks easier to me