Extracting line of text from csv file with PowerShell by matching a pattern at the beginning of the line

Question

I have a CSV file that I need to extract a specific pattern that occurs at the beginning of a line such as:

Line of text:

"555555","A",John"

This works:

Get-Content $CsvFile | Select-String '^"555555"'

This does not:

$idnum = "555555"
Get-Content $CsvFile | Select-String '^"$idnum"'

How do I extract the line when the string is assigned to a variable?

(Get-Content $CsvFile) -match "^`"$idnum". With that said, please take a step back and describe the actual problem you're trying to solve instead of what you perceive as the solution. What do you need the extracted line for? — Ansgar Wiechers
– Ansgar Wiechers, Commented Feb 28, 2019 at 21:12

mklement0 · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-28 21:20:23Z

5

The single-quote in powershell is a literal. So in the second, you're explicitly looking to match "$idnum". Because you've got double-quotes in your data you'll need to work around them.

Options You can build up double-quotes to get around this

Get-Content $CsvFile | Select-String "^""$idnum"""

Or you can format in a string replacement like this:

Get-Content $CsvFile | Select-String ('^"{0}"' -f $idnum)

Or you can update $idnum to include the double quotes and then the select-string call is much easier to read

$idnum = '"555555"'
Get-Content $CsvFile | Select-String "^$idnum"

edited Feb 28, 2019 at 21:20

mklement0

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answered Feb 28, 2019 at 21:17

GreyOrGray

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