PowerShell: Store Entire Text File Contents in Variable

Question

I'd like to use PowerShell to store the entire contents of a text file (including the trailing blank line that may or may not exist) in a variable. I'd also like to know the total number of lines in the text file. What's the most efficient way to do this?

Answer 1

On a side note, in PowerShell 3.0 you can use the Get-Content cmdlet with the new Raw switch:

$text = Get-Content .file.txt -Raw