CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershellldap
BlueBarren
BlueBarren

Reputation: 351

Cannot Get-ADComputer using a filter that contains a variable and a wildcard

I'm having trouble attaching a wildcard (the * character) to the end of a variable that contains a string in both a -Filter and a -LDAPFilter for Get-ADcomputer in PowerShell.

I've tried a few solutions that I'll highlight below that I couldn't get to work. $compName will be the variable I'm trying to add a wildcard to.

  1. The first thing I tried was a simple concatenation on a regular filter because it's just a string, shouldn't I be able to add the wild card on the end?

$compArray += Get-ADComputer -Filter 'Name -eq "$compName' + '*"' -SearchBase "OU=Office,DC=workplace,DC=org" -ResultSetSize 5000 | Select -Exp Name;

  1. The second thing I tried was putting two * on either side of my variable because I saw this seems to be a common thing for wild card searches but alas that didn't seem to provide a solution either.

$compArray += Get-ADComputer -Filter 'Name -eq "*$compName*"' -SearchBase "OU=Office,DC=workplace,DC=org" -ResultSetSize 5000 | Select -Exp Name;

  1. Since neither of those solutions worked I decided to switch to -LDAPFilter. The first thing I tried in LDAP was another concatenation.

$compArray += Get-ADComputer -LDAPFilter '(name=$compName' + '*)' -SearchBase "OU=Office,DC=workplace,DC=org" -ResultSetSize 5000 | Select -Exp Name;

  1. What I tried after that is similar to attempt number 2, I put the * around the entire variable but that didn't seem to work either.

$compArray += Get-ADComputer -LDAPFilter '(name=*$compName*)' -SearchBase "OU=Office,DC=workplace,DC=org" -ResultSetSize 5000 | Select -Exp Name;

  1. As to not get too repetitive I also tried separating the $compName from the rest of the string in the first four attempts, so we'll use the first as an example here.

$compArray += Get-ADComputer -Filter 'Name -eq "' + $compName + '*"' -SearchBase "OU=Office,DC=workplace,DC=org" -ResultSetSize 5000 | Select -Exp Name;

  1. The sixth try is where things get more interesting but I'm also pretty sure I didn't implement this method properly. I came across this post on techncet and thought I'd give it a try.

$compArray += Get-ADComputer -Filter *| where {$_.name -match "$compName[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]"} -SearchBase "OU=Office,DC=workplace,DC=org" -ResultSetSize 5000 | Select -Exp Name;

A couple of things to note with the above method, it wasn't very clear to me where $_ came from so that might be the cause of some issues. The other is that since this method uses some form of regex I thought I could search for what I'm trying to use a wildcard for which is a series of 4 digits but that didn't seem to help.

  1. I also tried using a where-object too that failed me as well.

$compArray += Get-ADComputer where-object 'Name -like "*$compName*"' -SearchBase "OU=Office,DC=workplace,DC=org" -ResultSetSize 5000 | Select -Exp Name;

As I alluded to above I'm not sure why any of my attempts didn't work hence I'm asking the question here. What am I doing wrong when trying to Get-ADComputer with a variable and a wildcard? I only need one of them to work so no one needs to figure out the issues with all of them but if you'd like to feel free.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 8049

Answers (1)

Jeff Zeitlin
Jeff Zeitlin

Reputation: 10799

Instead of doing a comparison with -eq and a wildcard, use the -like operator. -eq looks for an exact match, and doesn't handle wildcards; -like does:

Get-ADComputer -Filter "Name -like '*$ComputerName*'" -SearchBase ...

Upvotes: 2

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