Catching errors

PowerShell provides two different ways to handle terminating errors: using try-catch-finally, or using trap.

Try, catch, and finally

PowerShell 2.0 introduced try-catch-finally as a means of handling terminating errors.

Try

A try block must be followed by either one or more catch blocks, or a finally block, or both. Each of the following patterns is valid:

try { <script> } catch { <script> } 
try { <script> } finally { <script> } 
try { <script> } catch { <script> } finally { <script } 

An error occurring within try will trigger the execution of catch.

Catch

Catch is used to respond to terminating errors raised within try. catch can be used to respond to any exception, or a specific set of exception types. Each of the following is valid:

try { } catch { 'Catches any exception' } 
try { } catch [ExceptionType] { 'Catch an exception type' } 
try { } catch [ExceptionType1], [ExceptionType2] { 
    'Catch exception type 1 and 2' 
} 

In the following...