PowerShell cmdLet Set-Content

set-content creates or replaces a file and writes this file's text. In its most basic form, the cmdLet is given a file name and an array whose elements represent the lines in the file. The following example creates (or replaces) the file just-some.text:

Creating an empty file (mimicking the Unix touch command)

In order to mimic the Unix touch command to create an empty file (if it does not already exist), set-content can be used like so:

PS C:\users\rene\> set-content empty.file $null
PS C:\users\rene\> (get-itemProperty).length
0

DOS and Unix line endings

By default, set-content uses DOS line endings when writing a file (at least on Windows, that is).

In order to create a file that has Unix line endings, the array with the lines must first be joined with the Unix separator ("`n") and then written.

Because set-content by default also ends the file with a line separator, the -noNewLine must also be used. The final new line needs then to be added «manually», too.

$lines = 'foo', 'bar', 'baz'

set-content dos.txt     $lines
set-content unix.txt  (($lines -join "`n") + "`n" ) -noNewLine

format-hex dos.txt
format-hex unix.txt

Github repository about-PowerShell, path: /cmdlets/content/set/unix-vs-dos.ps1

Note, it seems that -noNewLine must appear as last element in this command as it causes an error if it directly follows set-content.

Alias sc vs sc.exe

A standard alias for set-content is sc.

So, if someone is used to invoke sc.exe (the Service Control Manager Configuration Tool) from cmd.exe by just typing the two letters sc, this might lead to unexpected results in a PowerShell console.

Therefore, to start the service configuration tool, it needs to be given its extension .exe:

PS C:\> sc.exe
…

PowerShell cmdLet Set-Content

Creating an empty file (mimicking the Unix touch command)

DOS and Unix line endings

Alias sc vs sc.exe

See also