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 = "[email protected]"
$To = "[email protected]
$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
– maeni70, Commented May 25, 2021 at 7:08
Please notice that since Outlook 2003 double \n are removed by default. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/troubleshoot/message-body/… — RedX
– RedX, Commented Aug 9, 2023 at 8:12

Shay Levy · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-19 21:00:33Z

38

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, 2013 at 21:00

Shay Levy

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5 Comments

dan-gph Over a year ago

@Robbert, you must have made a mistake. Try hard-coding $body and see what happens: $body = "This`nIs`nA`nTest"

Robbert Over a year ago

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 <br/>.

M-Pixel Over a year ago

Isn't join "`r`n" redundant to | Out-String? Why use both in the same command?

maeni70 Over a year ago

I had the same problem as @Robbert - it only worked for me when sending email as HTML with "<br/>" as separator when joining string array.

Minkus Over a year ago

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.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:32:35Z

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, 2017 at 12:32

CommunityBot

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answered May 19, 2016 at 3:25

Michael Freidgeim

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Comments

user3012708 · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-20 18:03:42Z

10

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, 2013 at 18:03

user3012708

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1 Comment

NibblyPig Over a year ago

This worked for me, using `r`n simply output `r`n

George S · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-13 22:54:13Z

7

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"

answered Oct 13, 2017 at 22:54

George S

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Comments

grimanvil · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-09 23:10:40Z

2

I went about it differently and just replaced the newline

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

answered Jul 9, 2021 at 23:10

grimanvil

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1 Comment

Robbert Over a year ago

This would do the opposite, replacing new line characters with a space.

Jess · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-05 16:32:58Z

1

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.

answered May 5, 2021 at 16:32

Jess

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Comments

jpsmith · Accepted Answer · 2025-02-26 19:22:30Z

1

As already stated above [Environment]::NewLine is the only reliable way to create a line break in Powershell. You can do a -join([Environment]::NewLine) with your array, this avoids the extra line at the end of the string that Out-String creates.

edited Feb 26 at 19:22

jpsmith

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answered Feb 25 at 12:33

Didi

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1 Comment

Chris Mar 2 at 19:20

This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post; instead, provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker. - From Review

Joel Coehoorn · Accepted Answer · 2025-02-26 19:40:40Z

1

Old now, but this still comes up for certain Google search results.

With that in mind, one potential issue not addressed by other answers is when the message body is treated as an HTML message. In an HTML context, regular line breaks are ignored and you would need <br> or <p> entities.

answered Feb 26 at 19:40

Joel Coehoorn

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