CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershell
Xiddic
Xiddic

Reputation: 17

Powershell compare variable1 with variable2

I am trying the following:

Variable1 = 'jack' , 'brody' , 'zack'
Variable2 = 'zack'

every value inside both variable1 and variable2 has the following attributes.

jack.username
jack.mail
jack.ou

I want compare variable1 with variable2 and only return users that are not present in variable2 and save the result to a new variable3.

"Example jack and brody would be returned to variable3, but not zack as he is present in both variable 1 and 2."

After return I also want username, mail and ou to be available in variable3.

I tried with the following:

$variable3 = $Variable1.SamAccountName | Where {$variable2.SamAccountName - 
NotContains $_}
$variable3 = Compare-Object -ReferenceObject $variable1 -DifferenceObject
$variable2 -ExcludeDifferent

(second one does not return anything if excludedifferent is used).

Upvotes: 0

Views: 219

Answers (1)

AdminOfThings
AdminOfThings

Reputation: 25001

You can use the following:

$variable3 = Compare-Object -ReferenceObject $variable1 -DifferenceObject $variable2 -Property SamAccountName -PassThru

When using Compare-Object, the -Property parameter allows you to specify which property value you want to compare rather than comparing entire objects.

The -PassThru switch returns all of the objects in their original form, which would include all of the properties you want.

Although not used here, the -ExcludeDifferent switch will return nothing if not used with -IncludeEqual because by default, Compare-Object returns differences.

Alternatively, you can use a combination of comparison operators1 and Where-Object. Since -contains and -in operator variants can support collections and single object comparisons, I would personally use those in favor of singular comparison operators like -eq or -like to ensure a more robust solution.

$variable3 = $variable1 | Where {$_.SamAccountName -notin $variable2.SamAccountName}

The object on the left side of the pipe | contains the properties that will return after the Where-Object is processed. So if you use $variable1.SamAccountName | Where, you will only return SamAccountName values.

[1]: Note that operators -notin and -in were added in PowerShell v3. If you are running PowerShell v2, they will not be available.

Upvotes: 1

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