#PSTip Get the contents of a file in one string

Note: This tip requires PowerShell 3.0 or above.

The Get-Content cmdlet returns the contents of a file as an array of strings delimited by a newline character. In most cases this is not a problem but sometimes you’d want to get the content as one string instead of a collection of strings.

In PowerShell 2.0 and below, getting the file content as a single string required one of two methods:

1. Use a .NET method to read all lines of the file

PS> $content = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllText($path)

2. Pipe the result of Get-Content to the Out-String cmdlet

PS> $content = Get-Content -Path $path | Out-String

In PowerShell 3.0 we now have a new dynamic parameter, Raw. When specified, Get-Content ignores newline characters and returns the entire contents of a file in one string. Raw is a dynamic parameter, it is available only in file system drives.

PS> Get-Content $path -Raw