One use of the Add-Content cmdlet is to append data to a text file. For example, this command adds the words «The End» to the file C:\Scripts\Test.txt:
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Add-Content c:\scripts\test.txt "The End" |
By default Add-Content tacks the new value immediately after the last character in the text file. If you’d prefer to have The End listed on a separate line, then simply insert n (Windows PowerShell lingo for "new line") into the value being written to the file. In other words:
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Add-Content c:\scripts\test.txt "`nThe End" |
Seeing as how you asked, here are some of the other special characters that can be used in Windows PowerShell output:
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`0 -- Null `a -- Alert `b -- Backspace `n -- New line `r -- Carriage return `t -- Horizontal tab `' -- Single quote `" -- Double quote |
Keep in mind that some of these characters are intended for use only from the Windows PowerShell prompt. For example, the special character a causes your computer to beep. Don’t believe us? Try this command and see what happens:
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Write-Host `a |
One nice feature of Add-Content is the fact that it accepts wildcard characters. For example, suppose you want to add a timestamp to the end of all the .log files in the C:\Scripts folder. This command will do just that:
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$A = Get-Date; Add-Content c:\scripts\*.log $A |
As you can see, here we’re simply assigning the current date and time to a variable named $A, then appending the value of that variable to all of the .log files in C:\Scripts.