PowerShell Transcript Tools
In the previous article, we looked at PowerShell’s transcription feature. Running Start-Transcript
is a terrific way to maintain an audit log or history of your work. You could put this command in your PowerShell profile script so that you always have a record of your work. If you need it, you can always start a nested transcript to record an isolated bit of work.
As you generate transcript files, you might want to get information from them. The transcript is a plain text file, so with a little PowerShell scripting, we can build a set of tools around it. That’s what I want to show you today. I also want to demonstrate a proof-of-concept using a PowerShell transcript as a logging mechanism for your functions.
If you haven’t already done so, create a transcript file for a session. To get the most from my transcript tools, create a transcript with a complete header. We already know that the header includes useful information, such as the PowerShell version and the user’s environment. Would it be helpful to extract that data and present it in a structured format?