PowerShell issue with string -match

Question

I need to match a content of a string against set of strings. I have something like this:

>$ID = "GEt"
>$ID -Match  "Get|YES|NO"
True

I don't need -cmatch - that's alright. But the following - not:

>$ID = "targetService"
>$ID -Match  "Get|YES|NO"
True

How do I avoid that, if the string I'm looking for is a substring of another?

Issue? No! This is REGEEEEEX! Seriously, you should read a little about regex and matches in powershell. — n01d
– n01d, Commented Jul 8, 2016 at 14:17

mjolinor · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-08 13:09:50Z

2

You can force an exact match with an alternating regex by adding the begin and end line anchors (^ and $). Use a non-capturing group to isolate the alternated text from the anchors:

$ID = "targetService"
$ID -Match  '^(?:Get|YES|NO)$'

False

answered Jul 8, 2016 at 13:09

mjolinor

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Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:16:16Z

1

As indicated in the comments, a regex -match operation is not necessary when you're looking for an exact match among a set of strings. Simply use the -contains operator (or -in in PowerShell 3.0+):

PS C:\> $ID = "GEt"
PS C:\> $Options = "get","yes","no"
PS C:\> $Options -contains $ID
True
PS C:\> $ID -in $Options
True
PS C:\> $ID = "targetService"
PS C:\> $Options -contains $ID
False

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:16

CommunityBot

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answered Jul 8, 2016 at 15:18

Mathias R. Jessen

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