Powershell long string with "`n" appears fine in console but get .count = 1

user_13917424 0
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I'm manipulating a test where I use multiple .replace commands to format the text.

For example

$str="hello%worldZZZniceZZZtoZZZmeet"
$str.Replace("%","`n").replace("ZZZ","`n")

Output in the console is good but I need to iterate each line. problem is $str.count = 1 meaning powershell looks at this string still as one line even when it shows up good in the console. any idea?

Edit:

If I output the string to file and then read the file it does read with new lines but there's a better way I'm sure instead of outputting to file and then reading it back again

powershell
2 Answers

Sounds like you're looking to split the string and get an array as result:

$str = "hello%worldZZZniceZZZtoZZZmeet"
$str -split "%|ZZZ"
($str -split "%|ZZZ").count # => 5

Since the operator is regex compatible you can use "%|ZZZ" (split on % or ZZZ).

user_153395440

Strings in .NET are immutable, meaning they always return a new string instead of modifying the current string, therefore after you run $str.Replace("%","`n").replace("ZZZ","`n") the original string is still unchanged. You need to store the result to a new variable if you want to deal with it

PS C:\Users> $newstr = $str.Replace("%","`n").replace("ZZZ","`n")
PS C:\Users> $newstr
hello
world
nice
to
meet
PS C:\Users> $str
hello%worldZZZniceZZZtoZZZmeet

But even then $newstr is still a string which doesn't have any count method. I don't know what you want to do with count. If you want to get the number of lines in the variable then just use Measure-Object

PS C:\Users> $newstr | Measure-Object -Line

Lines Words Characters Property
----- ----- ---------- --------
    5


PS C:\User> ($newstr | Measure-Object -Line).Lines
5
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