Join an array with newline in PowerShell

Question

I have an array of names that I'm trying to join using a new line character. I have the following code

$body = $invalid_hosts -join "`r`n"
$body = "The following files in $Path were found to be invalid and renamed `n`n" + $body

Finally, I send the contents via email.

$From = "myaddress@domain.com"
$To = "myaddress@domain.com
$subject = "Invalid language files"

Send-MailMessage -SmtpServer "smtp.domain.com" -From $From -To $To -Subject $subject -Body $body

When I receive the message, the line The following files in <filepath> were found to be invalid and renamed has the expected double space, but the contents of $invalid_hosts are all on one line. I've also tried doing

$body = $invalid_hosts -join "`n"

and

$body = [string]::join("`n", $invalid_hosts)

Neither way is working. What do I need to do to make this work?

This is not a duplicate as this problem specifically occurs in body of email when using Send-MailMessage in plain text mode. — maeni70, May 25 '21 at 07:08
Please notice that since Outlook 2003 double `\n` are removed by default. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/troubleshoot/message-body/line-breaks-are-removed-in-posts-made-in-plain-text — RedX, Aug 09 '23 at 08:12

score 34 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 19 '13 at 21:00

34

Pipe the array to the Out-String cmdlet to convert them from a collection of string objects to a single string:

PS> $body = $invalid_hosts -join "`r`n" | Out-String

answered Nov 19 '13 at 21:00

Shay Levy

121,444
32
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@Robbert, you must have made a mistake. Try hard-coding $body and see what happens: `$body = "This\`nIs\`nA\`nTest"` – dan-gph Nov 20 '13 at 07:03
1

It did the same thing I described above. In the end, I decided the issue may have been the formatting done by Outlook and changed the output to an HTML message. Instead of using a newline, I joined the array using `
`. – Robbert Nov 20 '13 at 18:07
6

Isn't `join "\`r\`n"` redundant to `| Out-String`? Why use both in the same command? – M-Pixel Jun 08 '20 at 16:18
I had the same problem as @Robbert - it only worked for me when sending email as HTML with "
" as separator when joining string array. – maeni70 May 25 '21 at 07:12
NB Out-String can truncate long lines based on the characteristics of the host program, so you may experience long variables been wrapped to another line - see the Width parameter. – Minkus Jun 14 '23 at 11:14

score 19 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

19

It is sufficient just pipe to Out-String (see https://stackoverflow.com/a/21322311/52277)

 $result = 'This', 'Is', 'a', 'cat'
 $strResult = $result  | Out-String
 Write-Host $strResult
This
Is
a
cat

edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

Community

1
1

answered May 19 '16 at 03:25

Michael Freidgeim

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16
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score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 20 '13 at 18:03

8

I'm unsure about how to answer everything else, but for guaranteed newlines in Powershell, use: [Environment]::NewLine in place of your "`n"

answered Nov 20 '13 at 18:03

user3012708

793
1
11
33

1

This worked for me, using \`r\`n simply output \`r\`n – NibblyPig Nov 13 '14 at 16:29

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 13 '17 at 22:54

Had to solve this today; thought I'd share my answer since the question and other answers helped me find the solution. Instead of

$body = $invalid_hosts -join "`r`n"
$body = "The following files in $Path were found to be invalid and renamed `n`n" + $body

use

$MessageStr = "The following files in " + $Path + " were found to be invalid and renamed"
$BodyArray = $MessageStr + $Invalid_hosts
$Body = $BodyArray -join "`r`n"

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 09 '21 at 23:10

3

I went about it differently and just replaced the newline

$result -replace("`r`n"," ")

answered Jul 09 '21 at 23:10

grimanvil

31
2

This would do the opposite, replacing new line characters with a space. – Robbert Jul 12 '21 at 18:41

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered May 05 '21 at 16:32

I am certainly no expert in PowerShell, but I found a much easier way to do it. Simply pipe to Write-Host like this:

$array = 'This', 'Is', 'a', 'cat'
$array | Write-Host

Output:
This
Is
a
cat

This is a slightly different use case than the OP question. It does not join the array with newlines, but it does give newlines when writing the output.

Join an array with newline in PowerShell

6 Answers6