PowerShell CheatSheet – Working with strings

Like in previous “educationnal” post, I consider that theory is bullshit; only an example is valuable!
So here’s a few examples to illustrate what we can do with strings.

1. Comparison

$string1="I am a string"
$string2="I'm a string"
$result=$string1.CompareTo($string2)

if ($result -eq 0) {
Write-Host "The 2 compared strings are equal"
} elseif ($result -eq 1) {
Write-Host "`"$string1`" is less than `"$string2`""
}
elseif ($result -eq -1) {
Write-Host "`"$string1`" is greater than `"$string2`""
}
else {Write-Host "Couldn't compare `"$string1`" and `"$string2`""}

2. Lower/Upper case

$string1="I am a string becoming... sorry, became upper"
$string2="I AM A STRING BECOMING... SORRY, BECAME LOWER"
$string1.ToUpper()
$string2.ToLower()

3. Starts/Ends With

$string1="I am a string. Do I start with a `"S`" like `"String`"?"
$result=$string1.StartsWith('S')
if (!$result) {Write-Host "Of course not! My content is checked, not my name..."} else {Write-Host "PowerShell has probably some issues with spelling today!"}

$string2="I am a string. Do I end with a `"g`" like in the end of the word `"String`"?"
$result=$string2.EndsWith('g')
if (!$result) {Write-Host "Of course not! My content is checked, not my name..."} else {Write-Host "PowerShell has probably some issues with spelling today!"}

4. Playing with letters
• Contains

$string1="I am a string. Do I contain the letter `"s`" like `"string`"?"
$result=$string1.Contains('s')
if ($result) {
Write-Host "Yes! But how many times?"
$occurrences=[regex]::matches($string1,"s").count
Write-Host "The letter `"s`" is contains $occurrences times"
} else {"Nope!"}
Write-Host "Ok, but how many letters (total) do I have?"
$result=$string1.length
Write-Host "$result letter(s)"

• Where’s My (Water) Letter?

$string1="I am a string. Ok, we knew it... But can I know where's my FIRST `"s`"?"
$firsts=$string1.IndexOf('s')
$firsts+=1 #Yes, we have to add 1 because the first position begins at '0'
Write-Host "Of course we can! Your FIRST `"s`" is the ${firsts}th letter in the string"
Write-Host "And what about the LAST `"s`"?"
$lasts=$string1.LastIndexOf('s')
$lasts+=1 #Yes, we have to add 1 because the first position begins at '0'
Write-Host "Come on! Your LAST `"s`" is the ${lasts}th letter in the string"

• Adding or remove a letter

$string1="I am a funny string"
$comment="and as I am a Police fan, now I would like to be a..."
$positions=$string1.IndexOf("r")
$leftPartofString=$string1.Substring(0, $positions)
$rightPartofString=$string1.Substring($positions+1)
$string2="$leftPartofString" + "$rightPartofString"
$string2=$string2.Substring(4)
Write-Host "$string1 $comment"
Write-Host "$string2!"
$string2=$string2.Substring(9)
$string2=$string2.Insert(2, "R")
Write-Host "OK, I'm still a simple $string2..."

• Replace a letter (or more)

$string1="string"
Write-Host "I don't want to be a $string1 anymore... Please do something!"
$string2=$string1.Replace('string', 'integer')
Write-Host "Now we can say I'm an ${string2}. Even if it's not my real type..."

5. Join/Split

$string1="I am a string."
$string2="I'm your wife!"
$result=$string1 + " " + $string2
Write-Host "$result"

Write-Host "And we can get divorced!"
$result.split(".")

6. (Durable) Split

$string="I want to be independant! Me too..."
$splitedstring=$string.split("!")
$string1=$splitedstring[0]
$string2=$splitedstring[1]
Write-Host "Content of separated `"`$string1`" is: $string1"
Write-Host "Content of separated `"`$string2`" is: $string2"

7. Bonus Tip

Write-Host "We can imagine a string containing a number. If we don't need to calculate something with it..."
Write-Host "We can also imagine this string is hum... my salary!"
Write-Host "Of course, it's an example so I want to be rich!"
Write-Host "So my salary will be contains in `"`$Salary`"."
Write-Host "And its value will be 200K€/year. So let's affect `"200`" to `"`$Salary`"."
$Salary="200"
$BadResult="My Salary is $SalaryK€/year"
Write-Host "$BadResult"
Write-Host "Not good at all..."
$BadResult="My Salary is $Salary K€/year"
Write-Host "$BadResult"
Write-Host "Better? Yes, because we now have the value, but what I need is to get rid of this space..."
Write-Host "This one is fine: My Salary is ${Salary}K€/year"