5 Best PowerShell Methods for Reading and Replacing Text in Files

by

💡 Problem Formulation: Many day-to-day tasks in software development and systems administration involve reading and modifying text within files.

Let’s say we have a configuration file where an application’s endpoint URL is written as http://example.com. Now, we need to replace it with https://secure.example.com across multiple files.

Efficiently automating this process with a PowerShell script can save a significant amount of time and reduce human error. This article will demonstrate several PowerShell techniques for replacing text within files.

Method 1: The Get-Content and Set-Content Cmdlets

The Get-Content cmdlet reads the content of a file, and when used with the -Replace operator followed by Set-Content, it allows for reading and replacing text in files. This approach is best suited for small to medium-sized files, as the entire file content is read into memory before the replacement is made.

Here’s an example:

Get-Content -Path .\config.txt | 
  Foreach-Object { $_ -Replace "http://example.com", "https://secure.example.com" } | 
  Set-Content -Path .\config_updated.txt

Output:

The updated content with 'https://secure.example.com' is now saved to 'config_updated.txt'.

In this snippet, Get-Content reads config.txt, then each line is piped through the -Replace operator to substitute the URLs, and finally, Set-Content writes the changed content to a new file config_updated.txt. This method is quite straightforward, but it is not memory efficient for large files.

👉 Python – How to Update and Replace Text in a File

Method 2: The [IO.File]::ReadAllText Method

The [IO.File] class in .NET provides methods such as ReadAllText and WriteAllText that can be used in PowerShell. This method is useful when you need to handle the entire file content as a single string, which can be particularly advantageous when you want to apply complex changes that span multiple lines.

Here’s an example:

$content = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllText("config.txt")
$updatedContent = $content -Replace "http://example.com", "https://secure.example.com"
[System.IO.File]::WriteAllText("config_updated.txt", $updatedContent)

Output:

The entire file content with 'https://secure.example.com' is now saved to 'config_updated.txt'.

The [IO.File]::ReadAllText method reads the content of config.txt into a single string, the -Replace operator performs the substitution, and [IO.File]::WriteAllText saves the updated content. However, as with the first method, this may not be suitable for very large files due to memory constraints.

Method 3: The StreamReader and StreamWriter

When dealing with very large files, StreamReader and StreamWriter from .NET’s System.IO namespace offer a more memory-efficient approach. They enable you to process the file line by line, reducing memory usage significantly.

Here’s an example:

$reader = [System.IO.StreamReader]::new("config.txt")
$writer = [System.IO.StreamWriter]::new("config_updated.txt")
while ($line = $reader.ReadLine()) {
    $writer.WriteLine($line -Replace "http://example.com", "https://secure.example.com")
}
$reader.Close()
$writer.Close()

Output:

Large file processed line by line, and updates are saved to 'config_updated.txt' with lower memory usage.

StreamReader reads each line of config.txt one by one, and StreamWriter writes the modified lines into config_updated.txt. This pair of objects efficiently handles the file without loading the entire content into memory, making it an excellent method for large files.

👉 How to Search and Replace a Line in a File in Python? 5 Simple Ways

Method 4: Using PowerShell 7+ and the -Raw Parameter

PowerShell 7 introduced the -Raw parameter with Get-Content which allows the user to read the content as a single string rather than an array of strings, thus combining the benefits of memory efficiency and ease of replacements. This method works well when you don’t need to process each line individually but prefer not to load everything into memory at once.

Here’s an example:

$content = Get-Content -Path "config.txt" -Raw
$updatedContent = $content -Replace "http://example.com", "https://secure.example.com"
$updatedContent | Set-Content -Path "config_updated.txt"

Output:

File processed as a single string, and 'https://secure.example.com' is saved in 'config_updated.txt'.

Utilizing the -Raw parameter with Get-Content, the script reads the file as a single string, processes the replacement, and Set-Content writes it back. This method is a good blend of performance and simplicity in PowerShell 7+.

Bonus One-Liner Method 5: The (Get-Content … -Raw) -Replace Operator

For the shortest possible script, this one-liner uses a sub-expression $() to perform the replace operation inside a single pipeline.

Here’s an example:

(Get-Content -Path "config.txt" -Raw) -Replace "http://example.com", "https://secure.example.com" | Set-Content "config_updated.txt"

Output:

Quick one-liner updates 'config_updated.txt' with 'https://secure.example.com'.

The one-liner wraps the Get-Content and -Replace operation inside $() and then pipes the result to Set-Content. It’s the epitome of PowerShell’s potential for concise expressions.

Summary/Discussion

  • Method 1: Using Get-Content and Set-Content. Strengths: Simple and convenient for small files. Weaknesses: Not efficient for large files due to complete file content loaded into memory.
  • Method 2: The [IO.File]::ReadAllText Method. Strengths: Useful for single-string operations and complex multi-line replacements. Weaknesses: Memory-intensive for larger files.
  • Method 3: StreamReader and StreamWriter. Strengths: Memory efficient, suitable for very large files. Weaknesses: Slightly more complex scripting required.
  • Method 4: Using PowerShell 7+ and the -Raw Parameter. Strengths: Good performance and simple for PowerShell 7+ users. Weaknesses: Not available for older versions of PowerShell.
  • Bonus Method 5: The one-liner. Strengths: Quick and exceptionally concise for PowerShell 7+. Weaknesses: Less readable, potentially difficult for beginners to understand or debug.