I've compared two files using the following code:
Compare-Object $(Get-Content c:\user\documents\List1.txt) $(Get-Content c:\user\documents\List2.txt)
How can I write the output of this to a new text file? I've tried using an echo command, but I don't really understand the syntax.
Use the Out-File cmdlet
Compare-Object ... | Out-File C:\filename.txt
Optionally, add -Encoding utf8 to Out-File as the default encoding is not really ideal for many uses.
The simplest way is to just redirect the output, like so:
Compare-Object $(Get-Content c:\user\documents\List1.txt) $(Get-Content c:\user\documents\List2.txt) > c:\user\documents\diff_output.txt
> will cause the output file to be overwritten if it already exists.
>> will append new text to the end of the output file if it already exists.
Another way this could be accomplished is by using the Start-Transcript and Stop-Transcript commands, respectively before and after command execution. This would capture the entire session including commands.
Start-Transcript
Stop-Transcript
For this particular case Out-File is probably your best bet though.
Related
I have a fairly simple PS script that was working perfectly, and now has suddenly started giving errors. I have narrowed the problem portion to a couple of Get-Content statements. Here's what the affected part of the script looks like:
$pathSource = "D:\FileDirectory"
Set-Location -Path $pathSource
Get-Content -Encoding UTF8 -Path FilesA*.txt | Out-File -Encoding ASCII FilesA_Digest.txt
Get-Content -Encoding UTF8 -Path FilesB*.txt | Out-File -Encoding ASCII FilesB_Digest.txt
This part of the script gathers up a collection of like-named files and concatenates them into a single text file for uploading to an FTP site. The Get-Content/Out-File was needed as the original files are encoded incorrectly for the FTP site. The script was working perfectly, running once each night for several weeks. Now, it gets the following error when the Get-Content statements are reached:
Get-Content : A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name 'Encoding'.
At D:\FileDirectory\Script.ps1
Environment is Windows Server 2016. I've tried different variations on the Get-Content parameters, but nothing has worked. I know there is a bug that affects network-mapped drives, but that's not the case here -- all files are local.
Any ideas/suggestions?
The only plausible explanation I can think of is that a custom Get-Content command that lacks an -Encoding parameter is shadowing (overriding) the standard Get-Content cmdlet in the PowerShell session that's executing your script.
To demonstrate:
# Define a custom Get-Content command (function) that accepts only
# a (positional) -Path parameter, not also -Encoding.
function Get-Content { [CmdletBinding()] param([string] $Path) }
# Now try to use Get-Content -Encoding
Get-Content -Encoding Utf8 FilesA*.txt
You'll see the same error message as in your question.
Use Get-Command Get-Content -All to see all commands named Get-Content, with the effective command listed first.
Then examine where any custom commands may come from; e.g., your $PROFILE script may contain one.
To rule out $PROFILE as the culprit, start PowerShell without loading the profile script and examine Get-Content then:
powershell -noprofile # Windows PowerShell
pwsh -noprofile # PowerShell Core
A simple way to rule out custom overrides ad hoc is to call a command by its module-qualified name:
Microsoft.Powershell.Management\Get-Content ...
You can determine a built-in cmdlet's module name of origin as follows:
PS> (Get-Command Get-Content -All)[-1].ModuleName
Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
In a pinch you can also infer the originating module name from the URL of the help topic:
Googling Get-Content will take you to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/get-content - note how the cmdlet's module name, microsoft.powershell.management (case doesn't matter), is the penultimate (next to last) URI component.
It seems an issue with the out command. Can you please try below code :
$pathSource = "D:\FileDirectory"
Set-Location -Path $pathSource
Get-Content -Encoding UTF8 -Path FilesA*.txt | Set-Content -Encoding ASCII -path FilesA_Digest.txt
Get-Content -Encoding UTF8 -Path FilesB*.txt | Set-Content -Encoding ASCII -path FilesB_Digest.txt
Well, I don't know why it failed, but I can say that I have completely re-written the script and now it works. I have to note that, given the errors that were occurring, I also don't know why it is now working.
I am using the exact same calls to the Get-Content commandlet, with the -Encoding parameter and the pipe to Out-File with its own -Encoding parameter. I am doing the exact same actions as the previous version of the script. The only part that is significantly different is the portion that performs the FTP transfer of the processed files. I'm now using only PowerShell to perform the transfer rather than CuteFTP and it all seems to be working correctly.
Thanks to everyone who contributed.
Cheers
Norm
Not sure if it helps, but I was running into the same with:
$n = ni '[hi]' -value 'some text'
gc $n -Encoding Byte
$f = ls *hi*
$f.where{$_.name -eq '[hi]'}.Delete()
also looks like there's already a chain of SOs about this known bug see this answer
In PowerShell, what's the difference between Out-File and Set-Content? Or Add-Content and Out-File -append?
I've found if I use both against the same file, the text is fully mojibaked.
(A minor second question: > is an alias for Out-File, right?)
Here's a summary of what I've deduced, after a few months experience with PowerShell, and some scientific experimentation. I never found any of this in the documentation :(
[Update: Much of this now appears to be better documented.]
Read and write locking
While Out-File is running, another application can read the log file.
While Set-Content is running, other applications cannot read the log file. Thus never use Set-Content to log long running commands.
Encoding
Out-File saves in the Unicode (UTF-16LE) encoding by default (though this can be specified), whereas Set-Content defaults to ASCII (US-ASCII) in PowerShell 3+ (this may also be specified). In earlier PowerShell versions, Set-Content wrote content in the Default (ANSI) encoding.
Editor's note: PowerShell as of version 5.1 still defaults to the culture-specific Default ("ANSI") encoding, despite what the documentation claims. If ASCII were the default, non-ASCII characters such as ü would be converted to literal ?, but that is not the case: 'ü' | Set-Content tmp.txt; (Get-Content tmp.txt) -eq '?' yields $False.
PS > $null | out-file outed.txt
PS > $null | set-content set.txt
PS > md5sum *
f3b25701fe362ec84616a93a45ce9998 *outed.txt
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e *set.txt
This means the defaults of two commands are incompatible, and mixing them will corrupt text, so always specify an encoding.
Formatting
As Bartek explained, Out-File saves the fancy formatting of the output, as seen in the terminal. So in a folder with two files, the command dir | out-file out.txt creates a file with 11 lines.
Whereas Set-Content saves a simpler representation. In that folder with two files, the command dir | set-content sc.txt creates a file with two lines. To emulate the output in the terminal:
PS > dir | ForEach-Object {$_.ToString()}
out.txt
sc.txt
I believe this formatting has a consequence for line breaks, but I can't describe it yet.
File creation
Set-Content doesn't reliably create an empty file when Out-File would:
In an empty folder, the command dir | out-file out.txt creates a file, while dir | set-content sc.txt does not.
Pipeline Variable
Set-Content takes the filename from the pipeline; allowing you to set a number of files' contents to some fixed value.
Out-File takes the data as from the pipeline; updating a single file's content.
Parameters
Set-Content includes the following additional parameters:
Exclude
Filter
Include
PassThru
Stream
UseTransaction
Out-File includes the following additional parameters:
Append
NoClobber
Width
For more information about what those parameters are, please refer to help; e.g. get-help out-file -parameter append.
Out-File has the behavior of overwriting the output path unless the -NoClobber and/or the -Append flag is set. Add-Content will append content if the output path already exists by default (if it can). Both will create the file if one doesn't already exist.
Another interesting difference is that Add-Content will create an ASCII encoded file by default and Out-File will create a little endian unicode encoded file by default.
> is an alias syntactic sugar for Out-File. It's Out-File with some pre-defined parameter settings.
Well, I would disagree... :)
Out-File has -Append (-NoClober is there to avoid overwriting) that will Add-Content. But this is not the same beast.
command | Add-Content will use .ToString() method on input. Out-File will use default formatting.
so:
ls | Add-Content test.txt
and
ls | Out-File test.txt
will give you totally different results.
And no, '>' is not alias, it's redirection operator (same as in other shells). And has very serious limitation... It will cut lines same way they are displayed. Out-File has -Width parameter that helps you avoid this. Also, with redirection operators you can't decide what encoding to use.
HTH
Bartek
Set-Content supports -Encoding Byte, while Out-File does not.
So when you want to write binary data or result of Text.Encoding#GetBytes() to a file, you should use Set-Content.
Wanted to add about difference on encoding:
Windows with PowerShell 5.1:
Out-File - Default encoding is utf-16le
Set-Content - Default encoding is us-ascii
Linux with PowerShell 7.1:
Out-File - Default encoding is us-ascii
Set-Content - Default encoding is us-ascii
Out-file -append or >> can actually mix two encodings in the same file. Even if the file is originally ASCII or ANSI, it will add Unicode by default to the bottom of it. Add-content will check the encoding and match it before appending. Btw, export-csv defaults to ASCII (no accents), and set-content/add-content to ANSI.
TL;DR, use Set-Content as it's more consistent over Out-File.
Set-Content behavior is the same over different powershell versions
Out-File as #JagWireZ says produces different encodings for the default settings, even on the same OS(Windows) the docs for powershell 5.1 and powershell 7.3 state that the encoding changed from unicode to utf8NoBOM
Some issues like Malformed XML arise from using Out-File, that could of course be fixed by setting the desired encoding, however it's likely to forget to set the encoding and end up with issues.
I found a ping script which is useful, but I'd prefer to write the output to a txt or csv rather than using Write-Host to output to the PS console.
What is the best way of doing this?
You will need to change the Write-Host to Out-File, or, better still, Out-Default. Using Out-Default will allow you to pipe the output to other cmdlets, and therefore allow you to handle the output differently on different occasions, depending on your particular need at the moment.
Write-Host bypasses the PowerShell pipeline, and effectively removes any objects it uses from the pipeline, making them unavailable for assignment or use by other cmdlets.
References:
Get-Help Write-Host
Get-Help Out-File
Get-Help Out-Default
Try adding the stdOut to an Array. Then write results at the end.
#Define the array
$myOutput = #()
#Do something here"
$myOutput += $myStdOut
#Done with something
$myOutput | out-file -FilePath c:\myOutput.txt -Encoding utf8 -NoClobber
$cat c:\myOutput.txt
In PowerShell, what's the difference between Out-File and Set-Content? Or Add-Content and Out-File -append?
I've found if I use both against the same file, the text is fully mojibaked.
(A minor second question: > is an alias for Out-File, right?)
Here's a summary of what I've deduced, after a few months experience with PowerShell, and some scientific experimentation. I never found any of this in the documentation :(
[Update: Much of this now appears to be better documented.]
Read and write locking
While Out-File is running, another application can read the log file.
While Set-Content is running, other applications cannot read the log file. Thus never use Set-Content to log long running commands.
Encoding
Out-File saves in the Unicode (UTF-16LE) encoding by default (though this can be specified), whereas Set-Content defaults to ASCII (US-ASCII) in PowerShell 3+ (this may also be specified). In earlier PowerShell versions, Set-Content wrote content in the Default (ANSI) encoding.
Editor's note: PowerShell as of version 5.1 still defaults to the culture-specific Default ("ANSI") encoding, despite what the documentation claims. If ASCII were the default, non-ASCII characters such as ü would be converted to literal ?, but that is not the case: 'ü' | Set-Content tmp.txt; (Get-Content tmp.txt) -eq '?' yields $False.
PS > $null | out-file outed.txt
PS > $null | set-content set.txt
PS > md5sum *
f3b25701fe362ec84616a93a45ce9998 *outed.txt
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e *set.txt
This means the defaults of two commands are incompatible, and mixing them will corrupt text, so always specify an encoding.
Formatting
As Bartek explained, Out-File saves the fancy formatting of the output, as seen in the terminal. So in a folder with two files, the command dir | out-file out.txt creates a file with 11 lines.
Whereas Set-Content saves a simpler representation. In that folder with two files, the command dir | set-content sc.txt creates a file with two lines. To emulate the output in the terminal:
PS > dir | ForEach-Object {$_.ToString()}
out.txt
sc.txt
I believe this formatting has a consequence for line breaks, but I can't describe it yet.
File creation
Set-Content doesn't reliably create an empty file when Out-File would:
In an empty folder, the command dir | out-file out.txt creates a file, while dir | set-content sc.txt does not.
Pipeline Variable
Set-Content takes the filename from the pipeline; allowing you to set a number of files' contents to some fixed value.
Out-File takes the data as from the pipeline; updating a single file's content.
Parameters
Set-Content includes the following additional parameters:
Exclude
Filter
Include
PassThru
Stream
UseTransaction
Out-File includes the following additional parameters:
Append
NoClobber
Width
For more information about what those parameters are, please refer to help; e.g. get-help out-file -parameter append.
Out-File has the behavior of overwriting the output path unless the -NoClobber and/or the -Append flag is set. Add-Content will append content if the output path already exists by default (if it can). Both will create the file if one doesn't already exist.
Another interesting difference is that Add-Content will create an ASCII encoded file by default and Out-File will create a little endian unicode encoded file by default.
> is an alias syntactic sugar for Out-File. It's Out-File with some pre-defined parameter settings.
Well, I would disagree... :)
Out-File has -Append (-NoClober is there to avoid overwriting) that will Add-Content. But this is not the same beast.
command | Add-Content will use .ToString() method on input. Out-File will use default formatting.
so:
ls | Add-Content test.txt
and
ls | Out-File test.txt
will give you totally different results.
And no, '>' is not alias, it's redirection operator (same as in other shells). And has very serious limitation... It will cut lines same way they are displayed. Out-File has -Width parameter that helps you avoid this. Also, with redirection operators you can't decide what encoding to use.
HTH
Bartek
Set-Content supports -Encoding Byte, while Out-File does not.
So when you want to write binary data or result of Text.Encoding#GetBytes() to a file, you should use Set-Content.
Wanted to add about difference on encoding:
Windows with PowerShell 5.1:
Out-File - Default encoding is utf-16le
Set-Content - Default encoding is us-ascii
Linux with PowerShell 7.1:
Out-File - Default encoding is us-ascii
Set-Content - Default encoding is us-ascii
Out-file -append or >> can actually mix two encodings in the same file. Even if the file is originally ASCII or ANSI, it will add Unicode by default to the bottom of it. Add-content will check the encoding and match it before appending. Btw, export-csv defaults to ASCII (no accents), and set-content/add-content to ANSI.
TL;DR, use Set-Content as it's more consistent over Out-File.
Set-Content behavior is the same over different powershell versions
Out-File as #JagWireZ says produces different encodings for the default settings, even on the same OS(Windows) the docs for powershell 5.1 and powershell 7.3 state that the encoding changed from unicode to utf8NoBOM
Some issues like Malformed XML arise from using Out-File, that could of course be fixed by setting the desired encoding, however it's likely to forget to set the encoding and end up with issues.
I am trying to replicate the functionality of the cat command in Unix.
I would like to avoid solutions where I explicitly read both files into variables, concatenate the variables together, and then write out the concatenated variable.
Simply use the Get-Content and Set-Content cmdlets:
Get-Content inputFile1.txt, inputFile2.txt | Set-Content joinedFile.txt
You can concatenate more than two files with this style, too.
If the source files are named similarly, you can use wildcards:
Get-Content inputFile*.txt | Set-Content joinedFile.txt
Note 1: PowerShell 5 and older versions allowed this to be done more concisely using the aliases cat and sc for Get-Content and Set-Content respectively. However, these aliases are problematic because cat is a system command in *nix systems, and sc is a system command in Windows systems - therefore using them is not recommended, and in fact sc is no longer even defined as of PowerShell Core (v7). The PowerShell team recommends against using aliases in general.
Note 2: Be careful with wildcards - if you try to output to inputFiles.txt (or similar that matches the pattern), PowerShell will get into an infinite loop! (I just tested this.)
Note 3: Outputting to a file with > does not preserve character encoding! This is why using Set-Content is recommended.
Do not use >; it messes up the character encoding. Use:
Get-Content files.* | Set-Content newfile.file
In cmd, you can do this:
copy one.txt+two.txt+three.txt four.txt
In PowerShell this would be:
cmd /c copy one.txt+two.txt+three.txt four.txt
While the PowerShell way would be to use gc, the above will be pretty fast, especially for large files. And it can be used on on non-ASCII files too using the /B switch.
You could use the Add-Content cmdlet. Maybe it is a little faster than the other solutions, because I don't retrieve the content of the first file.
gc .\file2.txt| Add-Content -Path .\file1.txt
To concat files in command prompt it would be
type file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt > files.txt
PowerShell converts the type command to Get-Content, which means you will get an error when using the type command in PowerShell because the Get-Content command requires a comma separating the files. The same command in PowerShell would be
Get-Content file1.txt,file2.txt,file3.txt | Set-Content files.txt
I used:
Get-Content c:\FileToAppend_*.log | Out-File -FilePath C:\DestinationFile.log
-Encoding ASCII -Append
This appended fine. I added the ASCII encoding to remove the nul characters Notepad++ was showing without the explicit encoding.
If you need to order the files by specific parameter (e.g. date time):
gci *.log | sort LastWriteTime | % {$(Get-Content $_)} | Set-Content result.log
You can do something like:
get-content input_file1 > output_file
get-content input_file2 >> output_file
Where > is an alias for "out-file", and >> is an alias for "out-file -append".
Since most of the other replies often get the formatting wrong (due to the piping), the safest thing to do is as follows:
add-content $YourMasterFile -value (get-content $SomeAdditionalFile)
I know you wanted to avoid reading the content of $SomeAdditionalFile into a variable, but in order to save for example your newline formatting i do not think there is proper way to do it without.
A workaround would be to loop through your $SomeAdditionalFile line by line and piping that into your $YourMasterFile. However this is overly resource intensive.
To keep encoding and line endings:
Get-Content files.* -Raw | Set-Content newfile.file -NoNewline
Note: AFAIR, whose parameters aren't supported by old Powershells (<3? <4?)
I think the "powershell way" could be :
set-content destination.log -value (get-content c:\FileToAppend_*.log )