PowerShell: Literals

Integer literals

Data type

The data type of numerical (integer) literals between -2147483648 and 2147483647 is a 32-bit signed integer.

Outside of that range, but within -9223372036854775808 and 9223372036854775807, the data type is a 64-bit signed integer.

Outside of that range, but within -79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,335 and 79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,335 the data type is System.Decimal.

Outside of that range, the data type becomes a System.Double.

An integer literal allows to specify its data type with one of the following suffixes. Most of those suffixes were added only with PowerShell version 6.2, though

Suffix	Type
`y`, `uy`	`System.SByte`, `System.Byte`
`s`, `us`	`System.Int16`, `System.UInt16`
`l`, `ul`	`System.Int64`, `System.UInt64`
`u`	`System.Int32`
`n`	`System.Numerics.BigInteger`

See also integral numeric types in .NET.

Multipliers

PowerShell provides a few multipliers:

`kb`	Kilobyte = 2¹⁰
`mb`	Megabyte
`gb`	Gigabyte
`tb`	Terabyte
`pb`	Petabyte

PS C:\> 4kb * 4
16384

Compare these multipliers with the prefixes for data units (such as kilo-meter).

Hexadecimal notation

An integer can be represented with the hexadecimal notation by prefixing the hexadecimal value with 0x:

PS C:\> 0x10 * 0x0f
240

Literals written with the hexadecimal notation are interpreted as signed 32-bit integer:

PS C:\> 0x7fffffff
2147483647

PS C:\> 0x80000000
-2147483648

String literals

Embed characters in hexadecimal notation

In order to insert characters in hexadecimal notation, $([char]0x..) must be used, for example:

"hello $([char]0x40) world$([char]0x0d)$([char]0x0a)next line"

Here document

The @"…"@ can be used like a here document. Variables are expanded and the string may contain apostrophes:

$num   =  42
$value = 'forty-two'

$text = @"
The number is: $num,
and it's value "$value"
"@

write-host $text

Github repository about-powershell, path: /language/lexical-structure/token/literal/expandable-here-string.ps1

The number is: 42,
and it's value "forty-two"

Note that there must be no character between the starting @" and the following end of line (Error message No characters are allowed after a here-string header but before the end of the line.).

Similarly, the terminating "@ must be placed at the start of a line.

Embeding single and double quotes

In order to embed the character that delimits the string literal into the literal itself, the character must be doubled:

'Five o''clock'
"They said ""hello""."

Backslash, backtick

The back-slash character does not have a special meaning (such as escaping the next character) in string literals:

write-host "P:\ath\to\dir"
write-host 'P:\ath\to\dir'

In double-quote string literals, the escape character is the backtick:

"They said `"hello`"."