Execute a powershell command from batch

Question

I need to split up a very long line in a text file (maybe hundrerd thousands of characters) into shorter lines (8184 characters) and a .bat cannot handle this task.

However, I found a PowerShell solution (here):

(gc in.txt) -replace ".{750}" , "$&`r`n" | sc out.txt

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This works when I open up the PowerShell window and paste the slightly adjusted version, where 750 is 8184 and execute it, BUT when including it in my .bat like this ...:

powershell -Command "(gc test.txt) -replace '.{8184}' , '$&`r`n' | sc temp.txt"

... it doesn't work as intended and inserts ...

`r`n

... after every 8184th character (I cannot inline format this, sry).

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I tried to make use of:

powershell -Command "& {(gc test.txt) -replace '.{8184}' , '$&`r`n' | sc temp.txt}"

powershell -Command "(gc test.txt) -replace '.{8184}' , '$&\r\n' | sc temp.txt"

powershell -Command "(gc test.txt) -replace '.{8184}' , '$&VbCrLf' | sc temp.txt"

But I'm unable to make it work. What is the problem here?

Answer 1

`r`n is the correct escape sequence for a newline, but the problem is that single-quoted strings don't do the escape sequence evaluation or variable interpolation that double-quoted strings do, hence the literal escape sequence ending up in your output. We need to pass the string to PowerShell double-quoted, which is somewhat tricky since we have to deal with cmd.exe's interpretation as well. Using four double quotes per understood double quote does the job:

powershell -Command "(gc test.txt) -replace '.{8184}' , """"$&`r`n"""" | sc temp.txt"