CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershell
Jack Smith
Jack Smith

Reputation: 63

Make one foreach iteration instead of 4 in Powershell

I am learning PowerShell and trying to figure out if I can just create one loop to get the following output.

$array = "Rick","John","James","Rocky","Smith", "Rob", "Joab","Riah","Rio"

foreach($nameMatch in $array){
if($nameMatch -like 'Ri*'){
write-Host "here is name starts with Ri:" $nameMatch
}
}

foreach($nameMatch in $array){
if($nameMatch -like 'Ro*'){
write-Host "here is name starts with Ro:" $nameMatch
}
}
foreach($nameMatch in $array){
if($nameMatch -like 'Jo*'){
write-Host "here is name starts with Jo:" $nameMatch
}
}
foreach($nameMatch in $array){
if($nameMatch -like 'Ja*'){
write-Host "here is name starts with Ja:" $nameMatch
}
}

output: here is name starts with Ri: Rick Riah Rio, here is name starts with Ro: Rocky Rob, here is name starts with Jo: John Joab, here is name starts with Ja:James

Upvotes: 1

Views: 60

Answers (2)

Doug Maurer
Doug Maurer

Reputation: 8878

Consider this. You can get the output of the names without a loop with regex -Match with the '|' (or) regex operator

$array = "Rick","John","James","Rocky","Smith", "Rob", "Joab","Riah","Rio"

$array -match 'Ri|Ro|Jo|Ja'

Output

Rick
John
James
Rocky
Rob
Joab
Riah
Rio

You could parameterize the foreach loop

'Ri','Ro','Jo','Ja' | Foreach-Object {
    write-Host "here is name starts with $_ :"
    $array -like "$_*"
}

Output

here is name starts with Ri :
Rick
Riah
Rio
here is name starts with Ro :
Rocky
Rob
here is name starts with Jo :
John
Joab
here is name starts with Ja :
James

Or even use a switch statement

Switch -Regex ($array){
    'Ri' {$_}
    'Ro' {$_}
    'Jo' {$_}
    'Ja' {$_}
}

Output

Rick
John
James
Rocky
Rob
Joab
Riah
Rio

Upvotes: 2

Smorkster
Smorkster

Reputation: 357

If you create another array for the starts you want to match, you can have a single loop. Like this:

$array = "Rick","John","James","Rocky","Smith", "Rob", "Joab","Riah","Rio"
$toMatch = "Ri","Ro","Jo","Ja"

foreach ( $m in $toMatch )
{
    Write-Host "`nHere is names starts with $m :"
    $array | where { $_ -match "^$m" } | foreach { $_ }
}

If do not want to, or can have another loop, you will have to have one loop for each test:

$array = "Rick","John","James","Rocky","Smith", "Rob", "Joab","Riah","Rio"

Write-Host "`nHere is name starts with Ri:"
$array | where { $_ -match "^Ri" } | foreach { $_ }

Write-Host "`nHere is name starts with Ro:"
$array | where { $_ -match "^Ro" } | foreach { $_ }

Write-Host "`nHere is name starts with Jo:"
$array | where { $_ -match "^Jo" } | foreach { $_ }

Write-Host "`nHere is name starts with Ja:"
$array | where { $_ -match "^Ja" } | foreach { $_ }

Upvotes: 2

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