As with every first program we write, we will print the classic “hello world” message. Here’s the full source code.
Write-Host 'Hello, World!'
'Hello, World!' | Write-Host
Result:
Hello, World!
Hello, World!
There is another method to print the output or the strings to screen and that is is Write-Output.
Write-Output 'Hello, World!'
'Hello, World!' | Write-Output
This will print the exact same thing as the previous snippet.
Result:
Hello, World!
Hello, World!
It all becomes different when the two commands are used to store the output.
$wh = 'Hello, World!' | Write-Host
$wo = 'Hello, World!' | Write-Output
Get-Variable wh
Get-Variable wo
Result:
Name Value
---- -----
wh
wo Hello, World!
As you can see the Write-Host outputs the value to the console while the Write-Output command stores the output in the variable.