Suppress console output in PowerShell

powershell output suppress-warnings verbosity

227,005

Solution 1

Try redirecting the output like this:

$key = & 'gpg' --decrypt "secret.gpg" --quiet --no-verbose >$null 2>&1

Solution 2

Try redirecting the output to Out-Null. Like so,

$key = & 'gpg' --decrypt "secret.gpg" --quiet --no-verbose | out-null

Solution 3

It is a duplicate of this question, with an answer that contains a time measurement of the different methods.

Conclusion: Use [void] or > $null.

227,005

Author by

Dominik Antal

Forever learning.

Updated on July 05, 2022

Comments

Dominik Antal almost 2 years
I have a call to GPG in the following way in a PowerShell script:
```
$key = & 'gpg' --decrypt "secret.gpg" --quiet --no-verbose > $null
```
I don't want any output from GPG to be seen on the main console when I'm running the script.

Due to my noobness in PowerShell, I don't know how to do this. I searched Stack Overflow and googled for a way to do it, found a lot of ways to do it, but non of it worked.

The "> $null" for example has no effect. I found the --quiet --no-verbose options for GPG to put less output in the console, still it's not completely quiet, and I'm sure there is a way in PowerShell too.
Ansgar Wiechers almost 11 years

>$null does the same as | Out-Null.
Ansgar Wiechers almost 11 years

In PowerShell v3 he could redirect all output streams like this: *>$null.
Erutan409 almost 9 years

Maybe so..but it would make more sense to use this cmdlet, instead of remembering an arbitrary "hack" to cancel out the output.
theyetiman over 8 years

@Erutan409 why is >$null a hack? Serious question.
Erutan409 over 8 years

@theyetiman Matter of opinion, I suppose. Using PowerShell's built-in Out-Null, I think, would read better when debugging someone else's code or even your own if it's been a while. It's an intentional function that's provided for the aforementioned problem, too.
codaamok over 7 years

Definitely a matter of opinion, >$null is easily guessable for me as linux user
Kody over 7 years

See this post: stackoverflow.com/questions/5260125/…
Ben Personick over 7 years

I hadn't thought about it much but I had assumed that " > $null" was an alias of " | Out-Null" to allow us CMD and Bash users a quick 'hack' to use it. However on thinking about it " | Out-Null" does use a pipe, and therefore will need at least one extra execution step over >..... Might be that " | Out-Null" is to make a standardized usage within powershell,a nd ultimately over-rides " > $null" which would make " > $null" a preferable usage. Looks like I may have to change my scripts currently using " | Out-Null" to use " > $null" instead.
Ben Personick over 7 years

Hmm, just did a little googling, and this Stack Exchange Item, seems to show that " > $null" is quite a bit faster at allowing command execution. stackoverflow.com/questions/5260125/…
Dan Solovay almost 7 years

@AnsgarWiechers Perhaps add that as an answer, so it can receive upvotes.
Ansgar Wiechers almost 7 years

@DanSolovay Nah. It's just a minor variation of Dave's answer.
JustAGuy almost 6 years

This is definitely the right answer. | out-null was just not enough.
spicy.dll almost 6 years

Why don't you flag as duplicate then?
Dirk almost 6 years

Because I've never done it and was uncertain about it. Now it is flagged.
Fütemire over 2 years

I'd be careful with this option, if you are trying to suppress console output but also trying to return results, this will actually return null and not your results.