CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexpowershellexpression
Bradley Kramer
Bradley Kramer

Reputation: 13

Using powershell to search for a pattern

I am trying to write a powershell script to search for a pattern in a text file. Specifically I am looking at reading a file line by line and returning any line that has a space at the 32nd character position.

I have this so far but it just returns all lines that have white space. I need to narrow it down to the 32nd position

Get-Content -path C:\VM_names.txt | Where-Object {$_ -match "\s+"}

Upvotes: 0

Views: 3905

Answers (2)

user189198
user189198

Reputation:

This is actually really easy to do. By default, Get-Content reads a text file as an array of strings (individual lines), unless you use the -Raw parameter, which reads it as a single string. You can use the -match PowerShell operator to "match" the lines that meet your regular expression.

(Get-Content -Path c:\VM_names.txt) -match '^.{31}\s'

The result of the above command is an array of lines that match the desired regular expression.

NOTE: The call to Get-Content must be wrapped in parentheses, otherwise the PowerShell parser will think that -match is a parameter on that command.

NOTE2: As a good practice, use single quotes around strings, unless you specifically know that you need double quotes. You'll save yourself from accidental interpolation.

Upvotes: 1

user2226112
user2226112

Reputation:

Use this pattern:

-match '^.{31} '

Explanation:

^ - beginning of the string
. - any character
{31} - repeated 31 times
   - a space

Upvotes: 1

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