Set-Content appends a newline (line break, CRLF) at the end of my file
tl;dr (PSv5+; see bottom for older versions):
(Get-Content webtemp.config) -replace 'database=myDb;', 'database=newDb;' -join "`n" | Set-Content -NoNewline -Force web1.config
Note: Replace "`n"
with "`r`n"
if you want Windows-style CRLF line endings rather than Unix-style LF-only line endings (PowerShell and many utilities can handle both).
In PSv5+, Set-Content
supports the -NoNewline
switch, which instructs Set-Content
not to add a newline (line break) after each input object. The same applies analogously to the Add-Content
and Out-File
cmdlets.
In other words: Set-Content -NoNewline
directly concatenates the string representations of all its input objects:
PS> 'one', 'two' | Set-Content -NoNewline tmp.txt; Get-Content tmp.txtonetwo
If what you're passing to Set-Content -NoNewline
is a single string that already has embedded newlines, you can use it as-is and get the desired result:
PS> "one`ntwo" | Set-Content -NoNewline tmp.txt; "$(Get-Content -Raw tmp.txt)?"onetwo?
Note that Get-Content -Raw
reads the file as a whole, as-is (aside from character decoding) and the fact that the ?
appears directly after two
implies that the file has no trailing newline.
In your case, since you're processing input lines one by one (via Get-Content
without -Raw
) and therefore outputting an array of lines (strings), you must first join them with a newline as the separator - between lines only - and pass the result to Set-Content -NoNewline
, as shown at the top; here's a simplified example:
PS> ('one', 'two') -join "`n" | Set-Content -NoNewline tmp.txt; "$(Get-Content -Raw tmp.txt)?"onetwo?
'one', 'two'
is a two-element string array that is a stand-in for your line-by-line processing command.
Encoding note:
In Windows PowerShell, Set-Content
produces "ANSI"-encoded files by default, based on your system's legacy, single-byte code page.
To control the encoding explicitly, use the -Encoding
parameter.
In PSv4-, a solution that uses the .NET Framework is needed:
PS> [System.IO.File]::WriteAllText('tmp.txt', ('one', 'two') -join "`n"); "$(Get-Content -Raw tmp.txt)?"onetwo?
Note that [System.IO.File]::WriteAllText()
, in the absence of an encoding argument, defaults to BOM-less UTF-8.
Pass the desired [System.Text.Encoding]
encoding instance as the 3rd argument as needed.
I never noticed this, so i did a quick search and found:
set-content adds newlines by default
The suggested solution is to encode your content to bytes and then use Set-Content with the -Encoding parameter.
Set-Content test.txt ([byte[]][char[]] "test") -Encoding Byte
I tested it myself so i can confirm that this works.
I see that's an xml file. This way doesn't add a newline.
[xml]$xml = get-content web1.config$xml.configuration.appSettings.add.value = $xml.configuration.appSettings.add.value -replace 'database=myDb;', 'database=newDb;'$xml.save("$pwd\web1.config") # in case of .net weirdness