PowerShell / PowerShell/PowerShell
PowerShell pipe default OutputEncoding should match [System.Console]::OutputEncoding to avoid encoding issues with native console tools like `more`
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Description
Prerequisites
- Write a descriptive title.
- Make sure you are able to repro it on the latest released version
- Search the existing issues.
- Refer to the FAQ.
- Refer to Differences between Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell.
Steps to reproduce
When executing commands like:
echo 中文文本 | more
the output is garbled (涓枃鏂囨湰) because PowerShell's default $OutputEncoding is UTF-8, but native Windows console tools expect the console encoding (e.g. GB2312).
To improve compatibility, it is recommended that PowerShell by default sets:
$OutputEncoding = [System.Console]::OutputEncoding
unless the user explicitly overrides it. Because after executing $OutputEncoding = [System.Console]::OutputEncoding, commands like echo 中文文本 | more work correctly without garbled output.
This change would prevent common encoding mismatches in pipelines and improve interoperability with native Windows console tools.
Expected behavior
echo 中文文本 | more
中文文本
Actual behavior
echo 中文文本 | more
涓枃鏂囨湰
Error details
Environment data
Name Value
---- -----
PSVersion 7.5.2
PSEdition Core
GitCommitId 7.5.2
OS Microsoft Windows 10.0.26100
Platform Win32NT
PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.3
SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion 3.0
Visuals
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Reproduce the issue on Windows with echo 中文文本 | more, then trace how the pipeline uses $OutputEncoding and how [System.Console]::OutputEncoding is obtained. The work is done when the default behavior produces readable native-console output without overriding $OutputEncoding, while explicit overrides continue to work.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- powershell
- Domain
- cli, operating-systems
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 48/100