Select-String in Powershell only displaying part of the line from a text file, need it to display whole thing

powershell cmdlet select-string
user3431504 picture user3431504 · Jul 4, 2017 · Viewed 10.2k times · Source

I am trying to write a simple PS script to check large .txt log files for a short string: "SRVE0242I:"

$lines = Select-String -Path $logDir -Pattern "SRVE0242I:" | Select-Object line | Out-String

On output though, it only displays the following:

Line
[28/06/17 13:48:27:839] 00000020 ServletWrappe I SRVE0242I: [User] [User] [com_xxxxxxx_...

And not the full line. Is there a limit to how many characters this pulls? I can't find any info on any restrictions for the Select-String cmdlet. Is there a better way to do this so that I don't a) pull the heading "Line" in my list of lines (Don't really want to create table formatting for such a simple output) and b) get the whole line when I pull the info?

Answer

Mark Wragg picture Mark Wragg · Jul 4, 2017

You are seeing it like this because it's displaying the Line property using the default Format-Table view and shortening it to the width of the console.

Do this instead:

$lines = Select-String -Path $logDir -Pattern "SRVE0242I:" | Select-Object -ExpandProperty line

This returns the value of the Line property as a string to the $lines variable. You don't need to use Out-String.

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