Out-File -append in Powershell does not produce a new line and breaks string into characters

Question

I m trying to understand some weird behaviour with this cmdlet   If I use  Out-File -append Filename txt  on a text file that I created and entered text into via the windows context menu  the string will append to the last line in that file as a series of space separated characters   So    This is a test    out-file -append textfile txt   Will produce  T h i s  i s  a  t e s t  This wont happen if out-file creates the file  or if the text file has no text in it prior to appending  Why does this happen   I will also note that repeating the command will just append in the same way to the same line  I guess it doesn t recognise newline or line break terminator or something due to changed encoding

User · Accepted Answer

Out-File defaults to unicode encoding which is why you are seeing the behavior you are  Use -Encoding Ascii to change this behavior  In your case   Out-File -Encoding Ascii -append textfile txt     Add-Content uses Ascii and also appends by default     This is a test    Add-Content textfile txt    As for the lack of newline  You did not send a newline so it will not write one to file

User · Answer

Add-Content is default ASCII and add new line however Add-Content brings locked files issues too

[powershell] Out-File -append in Powershell does not produce a new line and breaks string into characters

Examples related to powershell

Examples related to powershell-2.0