PowerShell 7.3 - implementing Out-File and UTF-8 BOM Formatting in Text Files
I'm working on a personal project and I'm using PowerShell 7.3 to export some data to a text file using the `Out-File` cmdlet, but I'm running into issues with UTF-8 encoding and BOM (Byte Order Mark)... My script looks something like this: ```powershell $data = @( 'Line 1: Data', 'Line 2: More Data', 'Line 3: Even More Data' ) $data | Out-File -FilePath 'output.txt' -Encoding utf8 ``` When I open `output.txt` in a text editor, it appears to not recognize the UTF-8 encoding properly, and the first line displays garbled characters instead of the expected output. I’ve tried changing the encoding to `utf8bom` and `utf32`, but I still see issues: ```powershell $data | Out-File -FilePath 'output_with_bom.txt' -Encoding utf8bom ``` The documentation mentions that `-Encoding utf8` should handle this correctly, yet the output seems inconsistent across different editors (e.g., Notepad vs. Visual Studio Code). I've also tested this on multiple machines, and the question continues. Is there a reliable way to ensure my text files are saved with proper UTF-8 encoding and BOM, or is this a known scenario with the `Out-File` cmdlet in PowerShell 7.3? Any insights or workarounds would be greatly appreciated! My development environment is Linux. Any ideas what could be causing this? This is part of a larger web app I'm building. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. I'm coming from a different tech stack and learning Powershell. Has anyone dealt with something similar?