Why the powershell convert my hash table into string block

Question

I have a hashtable ($applications) that looks like that:

Name                                                        Version
----                                                        -------
Adobe Flash Player 19 ActiveX                               19.0.0.226
Enterprise Library 4.0 - May 2008                           4.0.0.0
Entity Framework Designer for Visual Studio 2012 - enu      11.1.21009.00
Fiddler                                                     2.4.0.6
Google Chrome                                               49.0.2623.87
IIS 8.0 Express                                             8.0.1557

So I'm trying to exclude some applications from the list and for that I'm using:

[array]$excludeApps = "Fiddler","Chrome"
foreach ($excludeApp in $excludeApps){
    $applications = $applications -notlike "*$excludeApp*"
}

The result maybe filtered out the exclude list but as not as I expected:

@{Name=Adobe Flash Player 19 ActiveX; Version=19.0.0.226}
@{Name=Enterprise Library 4.0 - May 2008; Version=4.0.0.0}
@{Name=Entity Framework Designer for Visual Studio 2012 - enu; Version=11.1.21009.00}
@{Name=IIS 8.0 Express; Version=8.0.1557}

I tried to handle those values with GetEnumerator() and several syntax of ${applications.Name} but nothing is worked. I believe that PowerShell detect this list as string.

Any idea how to handle this?

Martin · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-17 09:50:16Z

1

Use select-object with -match/-notmatch Operator.

i.e.:

$application = $application | ? { $_.name -notmatch "fiddler" -or $_.name -notmatch "Chrome"}

or in the Loop:

[array]$excludeApps = "Fiddler","Chrome"
foreach ($excludeApp in $excludeApps){
    $applications = $applications | ? {$_.name -notmatch $excludeApp }
}

answered Mar 17, 2016 at 9:50

Martin

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Comments

Ansgar Wiechers · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-17 10:00:46Z

0

For one thing, your data is not a hashtable, but a list of custom objects, probably from importing a CSV. If you want to filter those objects by a list of partial matches (Fiddler, Chrome) on one of the properties (Name) the best approach is to build a regular expression:

$excludeApps = 'Fiddler', 'Chrome'
$expr = @($excludeApps | ForEach-Object { [regex]::Escape($_) }) -join '|'

and then filter the list with a -notmatch condition in a Where-Object statement:

$applications | Where-Object { $_.Name -notmatch $expr }

answered Mar 17, 2016 at 10:00

Ansgar Wiechers

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2 Comments

user6078751 Over a year ago

This solution will exclude any application that includes those words like "Multi Chrome Converter", " Fiddler on the Roof", etc.

Ansgar Wiechers Over a year ago

Which is what the OP was asking.

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