-ErrorAction

Q: How deeply does Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches: Fourth Edition, Covers Windows, Linux, and macOS cover -ErrorAction?

Explains alias discovery, suppression risks, remote-processing choices, ErrorVariable, and Try/Catch, but not parameter implementation internals.

As explained in Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches: Fourth Edition, Covers Windows, Linux, and macOS

-ea is a PowerShell parameter alias for -ErrorAction.

-ErrorAction is a PowerShell common parameter for deciding how a command responds when an error occurs. Its alias is -ea, which is handy at the prompt but easy to miss in help. section 4.6.2

Choose the behavior that matches the task:

Use -ErrorAction Stop when a failure should interrupt the current operation and allow Try/Catch handling. section 24.4
Use -EA SilentlyContinue only for errors you have deliberately decided do not matter, such as deleting an already-missing file. section 24.2
Continue processing while recording failures with -ErrorVariable, appending to existing data when necessary. section 24.4

Discover and use the alias

Inspect a command's parameter metadata to find the alias, then run `Get-Process -ea Stop`. Tab completion can reveal -ea after typing `Get-Process -e`, although help does not show that it equals -ErrorAction. section 4.6.2

PS /Users/james> (get-command get-process | select -Expand 
 parameters).erroraction.aliases

Inspect the parameter metadata to discover aliases that ordinary command help does not display. section 4.6.2

Handle a remote connection failure

For several computers, use `-ErrorAction Stop` inside a `foreach` loop when each connection should be attempted independently, or capture failures with `-ErrorVariable`. Wrap stopping operations in Try/Catch so the Catch block can warn the user. section 24.4

How Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches: Fourth Edition, Covers Windows, Linux, and macOS covers it

Cover of Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches: Fourth Edition, Covers Windows, Linux, and macOS

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Also explained in

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Practical Automation with PowerShell: Effective scripting from the console to the cloudErrorAction is a PowerShell common parameter that specifies how a command responds to non-terminating errors.
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Learn PowerShell Scripting in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition: Write and organize scripts and toolsErrorAction is a PowerShell common parameter that controls how a command or function responds to errors.

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Related concepts

Remove-Itemconfigures · Remove-Item is a PowerShell cmdlet that deletes specified files, directories, and other provider items, including their contents when applicable.
try-catch statementconfigures · A try-catch statement is a control-flow construct that executes code under exception handling and transfers control to a matching handler when an exception is raised.
aliaskind of · An alias is an alternative name by which an entity, command, parameter, or resource can be referred to.
CmdletBinding attributeconfigured by · The CmdletBinding attribute is a PowerShell declaration that enables cmdlet-like behavior and advanced features for a script or function.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches: Fourth Edition, Covers Windows, Linux, and macOS. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.