Scripting Wife Learns to Work with Text Files

re: Scripting Wife Learns to Work with Text Files

DVillejoin — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:10:08 GMT

First of all I want to say that I'm new at PowerShell but loving it!! And really enjoy reading the blogs here!

I was going to ask the simple question... Is there a difference/advantage over using this method or Add-Content cmdlet?

From the top, I notice two advantages by using the redirection arrows:

1. >> or > creates the file if it does not exist

2. "Get-Process | Add-Content -Path filename" adds the raw object (for lack of the correct terminology here, sorry) "System.Diagnostics.Process (powershell_ise)" and not the actual output you normally see in powershell by typing the Get-Process command.

So when would Add-Content be used advantageously?

Thanks!

re: Scripting Wife Learns to Work with Text Files

Vern_Anderson — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:30:41 GMT

Instead of calling notepad you could also use "Invoke-Item" to call the default app for whatever the file type...

Invoke-Item C:\fso\myprocesses.txt

re: Scripting Wife Learns to Work with Text Files

Fábio Jr — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:25:11 GMT

PowerShell = Powerful as VBScript + Simple as Batch

re: Scripting Wife Learns to Work with Text Files

K_Schulte — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:36:34 GMT

Hi Teresa,

writing to files is really easy in powershell!

Using outup redirection is identical to the way cmd.exe handles it.

So we can have our screen dumped to files just by adding a ">" or ">>" sign followed by a filename! That's simple! ( though I sometimes would prefer having the comparison signs for comparsions, but we get used to this .... sooner or later )

Have a nice weekend!

Klaus (Schulte)

re: Scripting Wife Learns to Work with Text Files

Bartek Bielawski — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 08:47:11 GMT

Narrative-wise: "sounds expensive" and "That is why they still exist" are my favorites. :)

PowerShell-wise: I would rather go with Out-File to avoid encoding issues, and issues with butchering long lines... :)