How do I type a TAB character in PowerShell?

windows powershell command-prompt
Hamman Samuel picture Hamman Samuel · Dec 19, 2013 · Viewed 101.8k times · Source

Task: By default, pressing the TAB key while in Windows Command Prompt will output file names, while it does nothing in PowerShell. I want to be able to type the TAB character in interactive mode, not via scripts.

Research: I found similar questions on this site and via Google search. Solutions found were addressing bash (Mac) or iterm (Linux), or suggested changing to another program such as TweakUI. My question is specific to Windows PowerShell or Command Prompt.

Clarification: A simple test for whether your answer works for my question is to type echo "1 TAB-method 2" into PS/CP, where TAB-method is your suggestion on how to insert a TAB character. If the echo gives 1 2 (i.e. 1 followed by a TAB space followed by 2), that's what I'm looking for. Hope that helps, and thanks everyone for taking the time to look at the question.

Answer

Shay Levy picture Shay Levy · Dec 19, 2013

If it helps you can embed a tab character in a double quoted string:

PS> "`t hello"

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