Another Advantage of Write-Information

Yesterday, at the end of my post, I mentioned that displaying information on the screen can slow down processing time.  It is true.  Here is a simple test.

First of all, execute this code in the ISE

Function Test-Information

{

[cmdletbinding()]

Param()

For ($X = 0 ; $X -lt 1000; $X++)

{

    Write-Information -MessageData "The value of X is $X"

}

    Write-Information -MessageData "Script Complete" -InformationAction Continue

}

Next execute this line of code.

PS C:\> Measure-Command -Expression {Test-Information}

Script Complete

Days              : 0

Hours             : 0

Minutes           : 0

Seconds           : 0

Milliseconds      : 186

Ticks             : 1860662

TotalDays         : 2.15354398148148E-06

TotalHours        : 5.16850555555556E-05

TotalMinutes      : 0.00310110333333333

TotalSeconds      : 0.1860662

TotalMilliseconds : 186.0662

Take note of the milliseconds.  Now execute this line of code.

PS C:\> Measure-Command -Expression {Test-Information -InformationAction Continue}

Notice that we are using the –InformationAction parameter to tell PowerShell to display the information messages.  Now look at the milliseconds in the measurement data.

Days              : 0

Hours             : 0

Minutes           : 0

Seconds           : 0

Milliseconds      : 443

Ticks             : 4439468

TotalDays         : 5.13827314814815E-06

TotalHours        : 0.000123318555555556

TotalMinutes      : 0.00739911333333333

TotalSeconds      : 0.4439468

TotalMilliseconds : 443.9468

It took more than twice as long to run.  Moral of the story is this.  Let your user decide if they want to see the “extra” information or just let PowerShell run and do its thing.