File

File

Configuration options

Option	Type	Mandatory	Default	Description
Path	String	Yes	N/A	Sets the file destination. It supports templating like $Logging.Format
PrintBody	Boolean	No	$false	Prints body message too
Append	Boolean	No	$true	Append to log file
Encoding	String	No	ascii	Sets the log file encoding
Level	String	No	Default Level	Defines the lowest logging level to logged
Format	String	No	Default Format	Defines a custom format for the target
PrintException	Boolean	No	$true	Prints the stacktrace when an exception object is passed to Write-Log
ShortLevel	Boolean	No	$false	If true the written level name is trimmed to three chars, ie ERROR -> ERR. This makes the logs more aligned and easier to read.
RotateAfterAmount	Int	No	N/A	Sets the amount of files after which rotation is triggered
RotateAmount	Int	No	N/A	Amount of files to be rotated, when RotateAfterAmount is used
RotateAfterDate	DateTime	No	N/A	Rotate after the difference between the current datetime and the datetime of the file(s) are greater then the given timespan
RotateAfterSize	Int	No	N/A	Rotate after the file(s) are greater than the given size in BYTES
CompressionPath	String	No	N/A	Path of archive (*.zip) to create for the rotated files

Example

> Add-LoggingTarget -Name File -Configuration @{
    Path            = 'C:\Temp\%{+%Y%m%d}.log'        
    PrintBody       = $false              
    PrintException  = $false              
    Append          = $true               
    Encoding        = 'ascii'             
    Level           = 'VERBOSE'          
    Format          =  '[%{timestamp}] [%{level}] %{message}'         
    RotateAfterAmount = <NOTSET>          
    RotateAmount      = <NOTSET>          
    RotateAfterDate   = <NOTSET>          
    RotateAfterSize   = <NOTSET>          
    CompressionPath   = <NOTSET>          
}

Rotation/Removal

The word Rotate has caused some confusion, Rotate is more often used to describe when a new log file is generated. In PSLogs and formerly the Logging module, Rotate is more of a Cleanup where old log files are removed. Rotation of log file, in other words, generation of new log files is determined by the log file path and variables used for the folder and/or file name. I would love to change this to Cleanup/Remove instead, but it would be a breaking change.

This module provides the functionality for the file target to remove old log files. To make full use of this functionality, variable data used inside the log path should be encoded, using the previously described format system.

When the file target is initialized, all files are retrieved, which expand the given log path. All internally known placeholders are therefore substituted with wildcard characters. Based upon this list of files a file is removed, if

• the difference between it's creation and the current data is greater then the specified RotateAfterDate
• it's size in bytes exceeds RotateAfterSize
• more than RotateAfterAmount files are present and this file belongs to the oldest max(|Files| - RotateAfterAmount, RotateAmount) files.

The default behavior is to remove the log files. It is however possible, to use the CompressionPath to define an archive for the rotated log files. This requires >= NET4.5 The following placeholders are supported

• %{timestamp}
• %{timestamputc} If an archive should already be present, the data is added to that archive.