Store Text File Contents in Variable Using PowerShell

1. Use Get-Content to Store Entire Text File Contents in Variable in PowerShell
2. Use [IO.File]::ReadAllText to Store Entire Text File Contents in Variable in PowerShell

PowerShell supports different file tasks, such as create, copy, move, delete, rename, and read a file. You can read a text file and view its content on the console.

Variables are denoted by text strings and begin with the dollar $ sign. For example, $a, $b, $data, etc.

This tutorial will teach you to store entire text file contents in the PowerShell variable.

Use Get-Content to Store Entire Text File Contents in Variable in PowerShell

The Get-Content cmdlet gets the item’s content at the specified location. You can use this command to view the text in a file or the content of a function.

The following command gets the content of a file C:\New\test.txt.

Command:

Get-Content C:\New\test.txt

Output:

This is a first line.
This is a second line.
This is a third line.

The following examples store the content of a text file test.txt in variable $a.

$a = Get-Content C:\New\test.txt

The file content is stored as an array of newline-delimited strings by default.

$a.Count

Output:

3

To store entire text file contents in one string, you can use the -Raw dynamic parameter.

$b = Get-Content C:\New\test.txt -Raw

$b.Count

Output:

1

Use [IO.File]::ReadAllText to Store Entire Text File Contents in Variable in PowerShell

The [IO.File]::ReadAllText is a .NET framework class that reads the content of a text file. It returns the entire text file content in one string.

$c =[IO.File]::ReadAllText('C:\New\test.txt')
$c.Count

Output:

1