Converting strings

PowerShell has a variety of commands that can be used to convert strings into objects.

Several commands are available specifically to work with strings:

• The *-Csv commands
• ConvertFrom-StringData
• Convert-String
• ConvertFrom-String

The Convert-String and ConvertFrom-String commands are part of a project called Flash Extract by Microsoft Research and have never been converted for use in .NET Core. These commands are only available in Windows operating systems and only available in PowerShell 7 via a compatibility session.

In addition to these commands, PowerShell can make use of the ToBase64String and FromBase64String methods of the Convert class to work with Base64-encoded data.

The *-Csv commands

ConvertTo-Csv turns objects in PowerShell into comma-separated value (CSV) strings:

PS> Get-Process -Id $pid | Select-Object Name, Id, Path | ConvertTo-Csv
"Name","Id","Path"
...