why is powershell not printing txts with line breaks?

Question

so i am trying to display commands for a powershell script for self-use. i am using a txt file as the source of the list. the txt file is formatted as so;

command (* is input)| description
----------------------------------------------------
pack                | opens folder pack
c * / cpp *         | copies mingw command to compile 
code                | reveals source
copy *              | copies input

Now; i have a function called that prints out this txt file and the function is this;

Function help{
 Write-Host (get-content -path {file-path})
  }

However, in the terminal, the output looks like this;

command (* is input)| description ----------------------------------------------------  pack           | opens folder pack * / cpp *                        | copies mingw command to compile  code

how can i fix this?

Answer 1

• Don't use Write-Host to output data - it is meant for display output.

  • Write-Host stringifies the array that Get-Content outputs, which means space-concatenating its elements, hence the single-line display.

• Use Write-Output to output data or, better yet, rely on PowerShell's implicit output feature:

Function help {
  # Get-Content's output is implicitly output.
  Get-Content -path somefile.ext
}

See this answer for more information.