Share this post: This is part of an ongoing blog series by Adam Gordon. Adam will show you how to use each PowerShell command each week. Adam will be covering Get-Content this week.
When should you use Get-Content
The Get-Content cmdlet retrieves the content at the specified location, such as text in a file or content of a function.
Files are read one line at time. This returns a list of objects that each represent a line of content.
PowerShell 3.0’s Get-Content allows you to get a specific number of lines starting at the beginning or ending of an item.
What version of PowerShell should I use for this blog?
Get the PowerShell Version for your machine
$PSVersionTable
This command displays the PowerShell version information for your machine.
How to use Get Content?
Get the text content of a file:
ForEach-Object Add-Content -Path .\LineNumbers.txt -Value “This is line $_.”
Line # 2: Get Content – Path.LineNumbers.txt
This example shows the contents of a file in the current director. LineNumbers.txt contains 100 lines according to the format “This is Line X”.
Line # 1 – The array values 1-100 are sent along the pipeline to ForEach-Object cmdlet. To create the LineNumbers.txt files, ForEach-Object uses a scriptblock with the Add-Content cmdlet. As each object is sent down the pipeline, the variable $_ records the array values.
Line #2 – The Get Content cmdlet uses a -Path parameter for the LineNumbers.txt text file. It then displays the content in PowerShell’s console.
Limit the number lines that can be returned with Get-Content returns
Get-Content -Path .\LineNumbers.txt -TotalCount 5
The -TotalCount parameter can be used to retrieve the first five lines.
You can get a specific line from a text file.
(Get-Content -Path .\LineNumbers.txt -TotalCount 25)[-1]
The first 25 lines of content are automatically included in the -TotalCount parameter.
The Get-Content command must be enclosed in parentheses to ensure that it completes before moving on to the next step.
Get-Content returns an array with lines. This allows you to add the index note after the parenthesis to retrieve a specific number. In this example, the [-1] index indicates the last index in the returned array with 25 lines.
Find the last line in a text file
Get-Item -Path .\LineNumbers.txt | Get-Content -Tail 1
This example shows that you can pipe files into Get-Content cmdlet. The -Tail parameter retrieves the last line of the file. This method is faster than using the [-1] index notation to retrieve all lines.
Get the content of an alternative data stream:
Line #1: Set-Content-Path.Stream.txt-Value “This is the content for the Stream.txt files’
Line #2: Get-Item-Path.Stream.txt-Stream *
Line #3: Get-Content-Path.Stream.txt-Stream $DATA
Line #4: Add-Content. -Path.Stream.txt. Stream NewStream. -Value “Added a stream named NewStream into Stream.txt.”
Line # 5: Get -Item.Stream.txt-Stream *
Line # 6: Get Content -Path.Stream.txt-Stream NewStream
Line #1: The Set-Content cmdlet can be used to create sample content within a file called Stream.txt.
Line #2 specifies a wildcard for the -Stream parameter that will display all streams in the newly created file.
Line 3 retrieves $DATA stream content.
Line #4 uses the -Stream parameter in Add-Content for creating a new stream containing sample content.
Line #5 uses Get-Item for verification that the stream was created.
Line 6 retrieves the content from your newly created Stream.
This example shows how to use -Stream to retrieve alternate data streams for files stored on a Windows NTFS volume.
The dynamic parameter -Stream is part of the FileSystem provider. Get-Content retrieves data only from the $DATA stream or primary stream by default. Hidden data like attributes, security settings, and other data can be stored in streams.
Use filters with Get-Content
Get-Content -Path C:\Windows\temp\* -Filter *.log
To indicate the path’s contents, you must include a trailing asterisk (“*”) when using filters to qualify -Path.
Learn the command for last week: Get-Counter
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