Powershell to read text file

One way to do that is to use the -replace operator. This PowerShell operator finds a string and replaces it with another. Using the example file contents, we can provide the search string foo with the replacement string bar which should make the file contents foo foo baz now. One way to do that is to use the Set-Content command. The steps you previously went through work…. This prevents you from writing the new contents back to the file.

To remedy this open file handle situation, I created a simple workflow that allows you to create a temporary text file on disk first with the new contents, remove the original file and then rename the temporary file. Below is an example of a function I built called Find-InTextFile which uses this approach combined with the ability to find not replace text in a file.

This method is ideal for reading large files because when you store the contents in a variable, it can take up too much memory and can impact performance as well. So, this is a more efficient way to get to the content you want. Besides Where-Object, you can also use match and regex operators to find the exact text you want. Get-Content is a highly versatile cmdlet that comes loaded with many options. Here are some things you can do with it. You may want to know the number of lines available in the file, so you can parse it accordingly.

The code for that is:. Earlier, we saw how to choose the first few or last few lines using the Select-Object cmdlet. You can also get the same results using some of the built-in methods of Get-Content. For that, you can add the Wait parameter, like this:. This command will continuously monitor the log file for the new lines that are getting added to it and will display the same to you. Thus, these are some of the different ways to read a text file in PowerShell.

Do let us know if you know more ways to read the contents of a file in PowerShell. Home » Tutorials » How to read a text file in PowerShell quickly and easily. PowerShell - Changing the execution policy. Powershell - Test the TCP port connectivity. Powershell - Download files from FTP server.

Powershell - Upload files to FTP server. Powershell - List the open TCP ports. Powershell - List the open UDP ports. Powershell - Translate IP address to hostname.

PowerShell - Repeat the command every 5 seconds. Powershell - Add user photo in Active Directory. Powershell - Show services information.

Powershell - Get the processes information. PowerShell - Send email. Powershell - Send email using Gmail. Powershell - Send email using Office Powershell - Finding user accounts recently created. Powershell - Finding users who did not change password. Powershell - Find inactive users in Active Directory. Powershell - Find inactive computers in Active Directory. Powershell - Get computers information from Active Directory. Powershell - Get user information from Active Directory.