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I want to assign output of git log into a variable, output only goes to the screen and the variable is left null.

$log = Push-Location $tempRepo;git init -q;git remote add origin ssh://git@git.weblnk.silverlnka.net/gxp/$repo;git fetch origin $branch -q;git log "$prevCommit..origin/$branch" --name-only --pretty=format: --full-history;Pop-Location

$log.GetType()

Also what I would like to do is create an array holding all lines excluding lines that appear empty.

Art
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2 Answers2

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To capture output from multiple statements in PowerShell, enclose them in a script block ({ ... }) and invoke that with & (or with . , if you want the code to run directly in the caller's scope, but that makes no difference for calling external programs such as git):

$log = & { Push-Location $tempRepo;git init -q;git remote add origin ssh://git@git.weblnk.silverlnka.net/gxp/$repo;git fetch origin $branch -q;git log "$prevCommit..origin/$branch" --name-only --pretty=format: --full-history;Pop-Location }

If you also need to capture stderr output from external programs such as git, append 2>&1 | % ToString to the call, but note that git log normally outputs just to stdout, so no extra effort is needed.

Here's a simple example of a cmd.exe command that produces both stdout and stderr output, and how to capture both in a PowerShell variable.

$out = cmd /c 'ver & nosuch' 2>&1 | % ToString

Note:

  • In the context of & { ... }, you're free to apply 2>&1 | % ToString to either the entire command group (& { foo.exe; <# ...#> } 2>&1 | % ToString); or to individual commands inside (& { foo.exe 2>&1 | % ToString; <# .. #> })

  • 2>&1 can have unexpected side effects - see this answer for background information.

what I would like to do is create an array holding all lines excluding lines that appear empty.

If external-program output comprises more than 1 line, PowerShell automatically captures the output in in an array of individual lines.

To simply remove empty lines from such an array, use:

# Assume that $out contains output captured from an external program.
@($out) -ne ''  # returns sub-array of non-empty lines.

As for what you tried:

$log = Push-Location $tempRepo;git init -q;git remote add origin ssh://git@git.weblnk.silverlnka.net/gxp/$repo;git fetch origin $branch -q;git log "$prevCommit..origin/$branch" --name-only --pretty=format: --full-history;Pop-Location

Because your command line is composed of multiple, ;-separated statements, what $log = ... captures is just the output from the first statement, Push-Location $tempRepo - and since Push-Location produces no output, $log ends up effectively $null.

mklement0
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You could wrap your commands in a transcript like so:

Start-Transcript -Path transcript.txt -NoClobber 

Push-Location $tempRepo
git init -q
git remote add origin ssh://git@git.weblnk.silverlnka.net/gxp/$repo
git fetch origin $branch -q
git log "$prevCommit..origin/$branch" --name-only --pretty=format: --full-history
Pop-Location

Stop-Transcript
$log = Get-Content transcript.txt | ? {$_ -match 'regex to filter unwanted lines'}
Dave Sexton
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