How to separate values in a variable in powershell?

Question

This may sound like a stupid question, but I am trying to separate the values in a variable so that I can cross compare them with another variable to decide what to do within an if statement.

Basically, I want to take the beginning letter of a users username, whatever letter that is, will then be compared to both variable to decide what action to take. So for example if the username is "Josh" the message "Home2" should appear. I'm not sure whether what I'm trying to achieve is possible but any help is appreciated.

$UserName = $env:username
$HomeDriveLetterAK = "\\charlie\home_A-K\$Username" 
$HomeDriveLetterAK = "\\charlie\home_L-Z\$Username"
$Home1 = "A, B, C, D, E, F"
$Home2 = "H, I, J, K, L, M"

If ($username.StartsWith($Home1, 1)) 
{
[System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("Home1" , "Status" , 'OK', 'error')
}
ElseIf ($username.StartsWith($Home2, 1))
{
[System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("Home2" , "Status" , 'OK', 'error')
}

mjolinor · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-30 13:08:54Z

1

Alternatively, you can use a Switch:

$username = "John"

Switch -Wildcard ( $username[0] )
{
 '[A-F]' { [System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("Home1" , "Status" , 'OK', 'error') }
 '[G-M]' { [System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("Home2" , "Status" , 'OK', 'error') }
 '[N-S]' { [System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("Home3" , "Status" , 'OK', 'error') }
 '[T-Z]' { [System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("Home4" , "Status" , 'OK', 'error') }
 Default { Write-Output 'Unable to determine "Home" for this user.'}
}

answered Oct 30, 2014 at 13:08

mjolinor

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1 Comment

alroc Over a year ago

I think I like this better than my solution.

alroc · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-30 13:00:16Z

0

First, make $Home1 & $Home2 arrays, not CSV strings. I'll make parsing everything a lot easier. Then use the ToCharArray() method on the String object that is $username to get the first character, and the -contains operator to compare.

$Home1 = ("A","B","C","D","E","F")
$Home2 = ("H","I","J","K","L","M")
$FirstLetter = $username.ToCharArray()[0];
if ($Home1 -contains $FirstLetter) {
    [System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("Home1" , "Status" , 'OK', 'error');
} elseif ($Home2 -contains $FirstLetter) {
    [System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("Home2" , "Status" , 'OK', 'error');
}

BTW, you probably want to fix the variable name in this line too:

$HomeDriveLetterAK = "\\charlie\home_L-Z\$Username"

answered Oct 30, 2014 at 13:00

alroc

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1 Comment

Wigleys_Extra Over a year ago

You are a genius! Thank you so much, you have no idea how much this is going to help me!

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