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powershellcygwindos2unix

echo "string" > file in Windows PowerShell appends non-printable character to the file

In Windows PowerShell:

echo "string" > file.txt

In Cygwin:

$ cat file.txt
:::s t r i n g

$ dos2unix file.txt
dos2unix: Skipping binary file file.txt

I want a simple "string" in the file. How do I do it? I.e., when I say cat file.txt I need only "string" as output. I am echoing from Windows PowerShell and that cannot be changed.

Solution

  • Try echo "string" | out-file -encoding ASCII file.txt to get a simple ASCII-encoded txt file.

    Comparison of the files produced:

    echo "string" | out-file -encoding ASCII file.txt

    will produce a file with the following contents:

    73 74 72 69 6E 67 0D 0A (string..)

    however

    echo "string" > file.txt

    will produce a file with the following contents:

    FF FE 73 00 74 00 72 00 69 00 6E 00 67 00 0D 00 0A 00 (ÿþs.t.r.i.n.g.....)

    (Byte order mark FF FE indicates the file is UTF-16 (LE). The signature for UTF-16 (LE) = 2 bytes: 0xFF 0xFE followed by 2 byte pairs. xx 00 xx 00 xx 00 for normal 0-127 ASCII chars