ConvertFrom-StringData: datafield after the first delimiter should be literal string.

[237dmitry]

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

\C characters sequence in the field after the separator causes an error:

$ 'aaa=aaa\Ccc' | ConvertFrom-StringData                                                 
ConvertFrom-StringData: Invalid pattern 'aaa\Ccc' at offset 5. Unrecognized escape sequence \C.

Expected behavior

Data field after the first delimiter should be the literal. Without escapes:


$ 'aaa=aaa\\Ccc' | ConvertFrom-StringData

Name                           Value
----                           -----
aaa                            aaa\Ccc

Actual behavior

Data field causes the parse error

Error details

$ (Get-Error).Exception                                                                        

Type           : System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexParseException
Error          : UnrecognizedEscape
Offset         : 5
Message        : Invalid pattern 'aaa\Ccc' at offset 5. Unrecognized escape sequence \C.
ParamName      : 
TargetSite     : Char ScanCharEscape()
Data           : {}
InnerException : 
HelpLink       : 
Source         : System.Text.RegularExpressions
HResult        : -2147024809
StackTrace     :    at System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexParser.ScanCharEscape()
                    at System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexParser.UnescapeImpl(String input, Int32 i)
                    at Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.ConvertFromStringDataCommand.ProcessRecord()
                    at System.Management.Automation.CommandProcessor.ProcessRecord()

Environment data

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      7.4.0-preview.6
PSEdition                      Core
GitCommitId                    7.4.0-preview.6
OS                             ArcoLinux
Platform                       Unix
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion              3.0

Visuals

[mklement0]

From the docs:

supports escape character sequences that are allowed by conventional machine translation tools. That is, the cmdlet can interpret backslashes (\) as escape characters in the string data by using the Regex.Unescape Method

In other words:

• The behavior is by design, and changing it would be a serious breach of backward compatibility.
• Your issue could be framed as a feature request, and would require a new switch - say -Raw - as an opt-in to the desired behavior.

[237dmitry]

Your issue could be framed as a feature request

How I can do it without recreation of initial issue?

[mklement0]

Recreating wouldn't be hard - you can just copy the text of the initial post into a new issue of type "Feature Request / Idea" and adapt it based on this conversation.

Otherwise, you'd have to ask someone who has labeling privileges - say @iSazonov - to add the relevant label to this issue (but updating the initial post is required either way).