Q: How do I read the content of a file in Windows PowerShell?

A: Reading the content of a file in PowerShell is very easy. You use the Get-Content cmdlet and the filename. Here’s an example:

Get-Content "d:projectspowershellwakeup.dat"

 To save the content to a variable just use this:

$data = Get-Content "d:projectspowershellwakeup.dat"

Each line of the file is an array element with the variable passed, so to display just the first line you could use this:

$data = Get-Content "d:projectspowershellwakeup.dat"$data[0] 

If you used $data.count, it would show the number of lines in the file. You can also access each line and perform some action by using the PowerShell foreach function, in this manner:

$data = Get-Content "d:projectspowershellwakeup.dat"write-host $data.count total lines read from fileforeach ($line in $data){    write-host $line} 

Learn more: Q. Can PowerShell read and parse XML files?