How do I encode Unicode character codes in a PowerShell string literal?

Question

How can I encode the Unicode character U+0048 (H), say, in a PowerShell string?

In C# I would just do this: "\u0048", but that doesn't appear to work in PowerShell.

It's us-ascii. But U+0048 should be encodable in that. I'm actually trying to encode an escape character (U+001B). — dan-gph, Jun 29 '09 at 06:46

score 93 · Accepted Answer · edited May 27 '22 at 15:27

93

Replace '\u' with '0x' and cast it to System.Char:

PS > [char]0x0048
H

You can also use the "$()" syntax to embed a Unicode character into a string:

PS > "Acme$([char]0x2122) Company"
AcmeT Company

Where T is PowerShell's representation of the character for non-registered trademarks.

Note: this method works only for characters in Plane 0, the BMP (Basic Multilingual Plane), chars < U+10000.

edited May 27 '22 at 15:27

noraj

3,964
1
30
38

answered Jun 29 '09 at 07:26

Shay Levy

121,444
32
184
206

4

You can even write a little function: function C($n) {[char][int]"0x$n"}. Which you can use in a string as follows: "$(C 48)ello World." Not ideal but probably a little closer to the \u escape. – Joey Jun 29 '09 at 09:29
This also works when you want to pass a unicode [char] to a function. Thanks for the help. – Sonamor Aug 21 '18 at 11:07
1

I know this topic is 2.5 years old, but following up on @Joey's comment, you can even make a function called `\u`. It's identical to Joey's, just with a different name. So the function is `function \u($n) {[char][int]"0x$n"}`. The way you call it is just like C# except that you need a space between the function name and the number. So `\u 0048` returns `H`. – chris Mar 10 '21 at 00:13
This only works for characters in BMP, else it triggers an error. Eg. `[char]0x1D400`: `InvalidArgument: Cannot convert value "119808" to type "System.Char". Error: "Value was either too large or too small for a character."` – noraj May 27 '22 at 15:25

mclayton · Answer 2 · 2018-10-29T10:32:10.133

28

According to the documentation, PowerShell Core 6.0 adds support with this escape sequence:

PS> "`u{0048}"
H

see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_special_characters?view=powershell-6#unicode-character-ux

edited Oct 29 '18 at 10:32

answered Mar 20 '18 at 10:34

mclayton

8,025
2
21
26

score 17 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 03 '17 at 20:39

17

Maybe this isn't the PowerShell way, but this is what I do. I find it to be cleaner.

[regex]::Unescape("\u0048") # Prints H
[regex]::Unescape("\u0048ello") # Prints Hello

edited Jan 03 '17 at 20:39

Peter Mortensen

30,738
21
105
131

answered Sep 08 '15 at 17:18

Kevin Buchan

2,790
3
27
34

Hashbrown · Answer 4 · 2020-03-24T06:19:22.610

For those of us still on 5.1 and wanting to use the higher-order Unicode charset (for which none of these answers work) I made this function so you can simply build strings like so:

'this is my favourite park ',0x1F3DE,'. It is pretty sweet ',0x1F60A | Unicode

#takes in a stream of strings and integers,
#where integers are unicode codepoints,
#and concatenates these into valid UTF16
Function Unicode {
    Begin {
        $output=[System.Text.StringBuilder]::new()
    }
    Process {
        $output.Append($(
            if ($_ -is [int]) { [char]::ConvertFromUtf32($_) }
            else { [string]$_ }
        )) | Out-Null
    }
    End { $output.ToString() }
}

Note that getting these to display in your console is a whole other problem, but if you're outputting to an Outlook email or a Gridview (below) it will just work (as utf16 is native for .NET interfaces).

This also means you can also output plain control (not necessarily unicode) characters pretty easily if you're more comfortable with decimal since you dont actually need to use the 0x (hex) syntax to make the integers. 'hello',32,'there' | Unicode would put a non-breaking space betwixt the two words, the same as if you did 0x20 instead.

`[char]::ConvertFromUtf32` has been available since .NET 2.1 so you don't need such a complex function — phuclv, Mar 24 '20 at 05:39
oh neat. The function is still necessary, I'm not writing `[char]blahblahblah` whenever I want a `"\`u{}"`, but it does simplify the `if` — Hashbrown, Mar 24 '20 at 06:15
besides `$_ -shr 11` should be used instead of `[int][math]::Floor($_ / 0x400)`, and `($_ -band 0x3FF) -bor 0xDC00` instead of `[char]($_ % 0x400 + 0xDC00)` — phuclv, Mar 24 '20 at 06:16
I s'pose that's obvious since it was a nice even hex number, oh well. Doesn't matter now that .NET can handle the overarching problem — Hashbrown, Mar 24 '20 at 06:21

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 29 '20 at 21:28

3

Another way using PowerShell.

$Heart = $([char]0x2665)
$Diamond = $([char]0x2666)
$Club = $([char]0x2663)
$Spade = $([char]0x2660)
Write-Host $Heart -BackgroundColor Yellow -ForegroundColor Magenta

Use the command help Write-Host -Full to read all about it.

answered Sep 29 '20 at 21:28

lit

14,456
10
65
119

[Shay Levy's answer above](https://stackoverflow.com/a/1056978/995714) already showed how to use `[char]0x2665`. In fact this is **far more inefficient** because you create a new subshell for each variable instead of assigning directly: `$Heart = [char]0x2665` – phuclv Oct 11 '20 at 00:53

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 24 '20 at 05:38

1

To make it work for characters outside the BMP you need to use Char.ConvertFromUtf32()

'this is my favourite park ' + [char]::ConvertFromUtf32(0x1F3DE) + 
'. It is pretty sweet ' + [char]::ConvertFromUtf32(0x1F60A)

answered Mar 24 '20 at 05:38

phuclv

37,963
15
156
475

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered May 28 '21 at 06:42

Note that some characters like might need a "double rune" to be printed:

   PS> "C:\foo\bar\$([char]0xd83c)$([char]0xdf0e)something.txt"

Will print:

   C:\foo\bar\something.txt

You can find these "runes" here, in the "unicode escape" row:

   https://dencode.com/string

How do I encode Unicode character codes in a PowerShell string literal?

7 Answers7

Linked