Q: How do I read the content of a file in Windows PowerShell?

A: Reading the content of a file in PowerShell is very easy. You use the Get-Content cmdlet and the filename. Here’s an example:

Get-Content "d:\projects\powershell\wakeup.dat"

To save the content to a variable just use this:

$data = Get-Content "d:\projects\powershell\wakeup.dat"

Each line of the file is an array element with the variable passed, so to display just the first line you could use this:

$data = Get-Content "d:\projects\powershell\wakeup.dat"
$data[0]

If you used $data.count, it would show the number of lines in the file. You can also access each line and perform some action by using the PowerShell foreach function, in this manner:

$data = Get-Content "d:\projects\powershell\wakeup.dat"
write-host $data.count total lines read from file
foreach ($line in $data)
{
    write-host $line
}

Learn more: Q. Can PowerShell read and parse XML files?

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