Summary
In this module, you've learned how to send pipeline data to files and in various output formats. The following are the key takeaways:
- PowerShell provides several ways to write output to a file. The Out-File command can accept input from the pipeline and write that data to a file. Its behavior differs from converting or exporting the objects, because you don’t change the form of the objects.
- PowerShell includes the ability to convert pipeline objects to other forms of data representation. It uses two distinct verbs for conversion: ConvertTo and Export. A command that uses ConvertTo, such as ConvertTo-Csv accepts objects as input from the pipeline and produces converted data as output to the pipeline. That is, the data remains in PowerShell.
- A command that uses Export, such as Export-Csv, performs two operations: it converts the data and then writes the data to external storage, such as a file on disk. Export commands combine the functionality of ConvertTo with a command such as Out-File. They don't usually put any output into the pipeline.
- PowerShell converts data to XML by using the ConvertTo-Clixml and Export-Clixml commands.
- In PowerShell, you create JSON‑formatted data by using the ConvertTo-Json command. Unlike XML and CSV, however, JSON doesn't have an Export command for converting the data and creating an output file. Therefore, you must use Out-File or one of the text redirection operators to send the JSON data to a file.
- Windows PowerShell has the ConvertTo-Html command that you can use when you need to display your Windows PowerShell output in a web browser or send it to a process, like the Send-MailMessage command, which accepts HTML input.
- PowerShell provides various other options for controlling output.