Variable not passing to Where-Object in Powershell

Question

I have tried the "filter" and "param" options from the post -- In powershell passing variable to where-object not working -- with no luck. I am fairly new to powershell since I have not used it since 2014. Can anyone assist me in finding out why the $UName variable is not being passed to the Where-Object command?

cls

$UName = Read-Host -Prompt "Name or part of name to search"
Write-Output "Searching for: $UName, please wait"

Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties * | Where-Object {
    $_.name -like "*$UName*" -and 
    $_.company -like "*XYZ Corp*"
}  | select Name, title, company, Country, mailnickname

Pause

My only output is:

Name or part of name to search: Justin
Searching for: Justin, please wait
Press Enter to continue...

I have even tried using -Contains $UName and -Contains "$UName" yet still get the same results as above.

I have searched, and searched but cannot figure this out. Any assistance would really help!

If you remove the Pause or hit Enter do you see the output? You might be falling foul of an issue where output (implicitly) send to Format-Table is delayed for 300ms and is being blocked by the Pause - see stackoverflow.com/a/59331305/3156906 for more details... — mclayton
– mclayton, Commented Feb 8, 2023 at 20:59
Your Where-Object clause is using an undefined variable $filter, not $UName... — Theo
– Theo, Commented Feb 8, 2023 at 21:07
@Theo - Corrected... In my actual script I had it correct. I have updated this post. — user3499299
– user3499299, Commented Feb 8, 2023 at 21:16
@mclayton - If I remove the Pause or hit Enter it just goes to PS C:\Users\UserName\Documents> — user3499299
– user3499299, Commented Feb 8, 2023 at 21:18
Why not use the Active Directory filter instead of Where-Object ? — Santiago Squarzon
– Santiago Squarzon, Commented Feb 8, 2023 at 21:18

Santiago Squarzon · Accepted Answer · 2023-02-08 21:34:23Z

2

Your script can be simplified as follows, you really shouldn't query all Domain Users (-Filter *) to then filter them with PowerShell (Where-Object). Instead, you should use the Active Directory Filter. Same goes for querying all users properties (-Properties *) when you actually only need some of them (Name, title, company, Country, mailnickname).

# using Trim() to remove any excess whitespace (trailing and leading)
$UName = (Read-Host -Prompt "Name or part of name to search").Trim()
# if there was no input or input was purely whitespace
if(-not $UName) {
    # exit this script
    return
}

# if input was valid
Write-Output "Searching for: $UName, please wait"

# try to search for the user
$props = 'Name', 'title', 'company', 'Country', 'mailnickname'
Get-ADUser -LDAPFilter "(&(name=*$UName*)(company=*XYZ Corp*))" -Properties $props |
    Select-Object $props | Format-Table -AutoSize

answered Feb 8, 2023 at 21:34

Santiago Squarzon

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1 Comment

user3499299 Over a year ago

THANK YOU!!!! after 9 years out of scripting I would have never thought of this solution!

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