Get-Content - Powershell 1.0 CmdLet

Microsoft Windows PowerShell is a command-line shell and scripting tool based on the Microsoft .NET Framework. It is designed for system administrators, engineers and developers to control and automate the administration of Windows and applications.

More than hundred command-line tools (so called "cmdlets") can be used to perform system administration tasks and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). These cmdlets are easy to use, with standard naming conventions and common parameters, and standard tools for piping, sorting, filtering, and formatting data and objects.

Get-Content

Description
Get content from item (specific location)

Usage


Options
-path string
       The paths to the items from which content is to be retrieved.
       Wildcards are permitted.

   -literalPath string
       Like Path above, only the value is used exactly as typed.
       No characters are interpreted as wildcards. If the path includes any
       escape characters then enclose the path in single quotation marks.

   -totalCount long
       Number of lines of content are retrieved. The default is -1 (a
       ll lines).

   -readCount long
       Send n lines of content through the pipeline at a time.
       The default 0, sends all of the content at once. 
        
       A low value for ReadCount will return the first line quickly,
       to minimise the total time for the operation choose a high value.

   -include string
       Retrieve only the specified items from the Path. 
       Wildcards are permitted. e.g. "*.txt"

   -exclude string
       Omit the specified items from the Path 
       Wildcards are permitted. e.g. "*.log"

   -filter string
       A filter in the provider's format or language. 
       The exact syntax of the filter (wildcard support etc) depends on the provider.
       Filters are more efficient than -include/-exclude, because the provider
       applies the filter when retrieving the objects, rather than having 
       PowerShell filter the objects after they are retrieved.

   -force
       Override restrictions that prevent the command from succeeding, apart
       from security settings. e.g. Force will create file path directories 
       or override a files read-only attribute, but will not change file permissions.

   -credential PSCredential
       Present a user/password credential to validate access to the file.
       This is not yet supported in any Windows PowerShell core commands.

   -encoding fsCmdEncoding
       The character encoding for this content(PowerShell FileSystem provider only.)
       Values: Unknown, string, Unicode, Byte, BigEndianUnicode, UTF8, UTF7, Ascii.

   CommonParameters:
       -Verbose, -Debug, -ErrorAction, -ErrorVariable, -OutVariable.

Example(s)
Display the content of a file on the console (via the pipeline):

PS C:\>get-content -Path C:\myFile.txt

Get the first 50 lines from one file and write into another file:

PS C:\>get-content c:\Logs\BigLogfile.txt -totalcount 50 | set-content c:\Logs\top50.txt