Build Analysis

The Invoke-Build parameter Result is used to tell where to store build results like invoked task objects, error and warning objects, list of all tasks, and an error that stopped a build.

The command for getting results looks like

Invoke-Build ... -Result Result

It tells to create the variable $Result populated with build data. See help:

Get-Help Invoke-Build -Parameter Result

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Errors and warnings analysis

The list $Result.Errors contains objects:

• Error - original error record
• File - current $BuildFile
• Task - current $Task or null for non-task errors

The list $Result.Warnings contains objects:

• Message - warning message
• File - current $BuildFile
• Task - current $Task or null for non-task warnings

Analysis of errors and warnings is especially useful in testing scenarios when several build scripts *.test.ps1 are invoked:

Invoke-Build ** -Safe -Result Result

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Task error analysis

In order to get errors by tasks iterate through $Result.Tasks and check their Error. In addition to an error there is useful task information as well: Name, InvocationInfo.ScriptName, and InvocationInfo.ScriptLineNumber.

foreach($t in $Result.Tasks) {
    if ($t.Error) {
        "Task '$($t.Name)' at $($t.InvocationInfo.ScriptName):$($t.InvocationInfo.ScriptLineNumber)"
        $t.Error
    }
}

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Show tasks summary

This code snippet shows all tasks summary after the build (even failed).

try {
    # Invoke the build and keep results in the variable Result
    Invoke-Build -Result Result
}
finally {
    # Show task summary information after the build
    $Result.Tasks | Format-Table Elapsed, Name, Error -AutoSize
}

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Show task durations and script names

This code snippet shows all tasks ordered by the Elapsed times and adds task ScriptNames to task names (this is useful if different scripts have same task names, e.g. typical: Build, Clean, Test, ...).

# Invoke the build and keep results in the variable Result
Invoke-Build -Result Result

# Show invoked tasks ordered by Elapsed with ScriptName included
$Result.Tasks |
Sort-Object Elapsed |
Format-Table -AutoSize Elapsed, @{
    Name = 'Task'
    Expression = {$_.Name + ' @ ' + $_.InvocationInfo.ScriptName}
}