Powershell replace adding an empty line

Question

I have this powershell code which should replace every occurrence of a string in every file in the directory with a new string. This works, however an empty line is added in the end. What causes this, and how can this be nicely avoided?

$files = Get-ChildItem $currentDir *.* -recurse
foreach ($file in $files)
    {
    $find = "placeholder"
    $replace = "newvalue"
    $content = Get-Content $($file.FullName) -Raw
    $content -replace $find,$replace | Out-File $($file.FullName) 
    }

Simply removing the last line is not a good solution since sometimes my files will contain an empty line which I want to keep.

All files are in Unicode?

Jean-Claude Colette
– Jean-Claude Colette

2017-08-03 15:54:11 +00:00
Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 15:54 — Jean-Claude Colette
– Jean-Claude Colette, Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 15:54
It's out-file that adds a newline, not -replace

Mathias R. Jessen
– Mathias R. Jessen

2017-08-03 16:05:59 +00:00
Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 16:05 — Mathias R. Jessen
– Mathias R. Jessen, Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 16:05

BenH · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-03 16:08:21Z

3

You could use the -NoNewline parameter to prevent Out-File from appending the extra line at the end of the file.

$content -replace $find,$replace | Out-File $($file.FullName) -NoNewline

Note: this was added in PowerShell 5.0

answered Aug 3, 2017 at 16:08

BenH

10.1k1 gold badge26 silver badges38 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

iRon Over a year ago

For prior versions of PowerShell you might consider using Set-Content or Add-Content but mind the differences with Out-File: stackoverflow.com/questions/10655788/…

Houbie Over a year ago

I put my version in a comment, so that the formatting looks better. I am still limited to PS version 4.

Houbie · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-14 09:24:07Z

0

I am limited to PS version 4, and this is what I used

$files = Get-ChildItem $currentDir . -recurse

$find = "placeholder"
$replace = ""newvalue"    

foreach ($file in $files)
    {
    $content = Get-Content $($file.FullName) -Raw | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace $find,$replace}
    $content = $content -join "`r`n"

    $content | Set-Content  $($file.FullName)      
    }

Note that this only works if it is ok to store the complete file in memory.

edited Aug 14, 2017 at 9:24

answered Aug 4, 2017 at 8:19

Houbie

1,5671 gold badge13 silver badges26 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Powershell replace adding an empty line

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related