Powershell Script not working

robertrawers3 · 2018-06-26T11:53:33.000Z

Hello everyone, Below is a sample of a code for parsing through some text files for some words.

It works with:

$Path = "\\Server\Share"
Get-ChildItem -path $Path -Include *.txt -recurse | Select-String -Pattern "Office, Java" | OGV

but doesn’t work with:

$Path = "\\Server\Share"
$SW = "Office, Java"
Get-ChildItem -path $Path -Include *.txt -recurse | Select-String -Pattern $SW | OGV

can anyone explain why or what needs to be changed.

brad · 2018-06-26T12:01:38.000Z

what error are you getting?

robertriceii · 2018-06-26T12:03:15.000Z

Just a guess, but you might try

$SW = "*Office*"

# or

...Select-String -Pattern "*$SW*"...

brad · 2018-06-26T12:06:38.000Z

hmm I justed tested and worked as is on my systems

tahin · 2018-06-26T12:09:41.000Z

I wasn’t able to reproduce your issue. Matching -pattern to a string variable versus a string gave me the same results.

Maybe try to add -SimpleMatch and see what happens? That will tell PowerShell to interpret $SW as a string and not attempt RegEx.

Get-ChildItem -path $Path -Include *.txt -recurse | Select-String -Pattern $SW -SimpleMatch | OGV

DoctorDNS · 2018-06-26T12:13:30.000Z

RobertR_TX:

Just a guess, but you might try
$SW = "*Office*"

# or

...Select-String -Pattern "*$SW*"...

NO. The pattern is a regex not a wild card.

robertrawers3 · 2018-06-26T12:50:20.000Z

Br@d:

what error are you getting?

the first way works as intended.

the second outputs nothing

robertrawers3 · 2018-06-26T12:53:17.000Z

i updated the scripts above.

it has an issue when you have multiple patterns

robertrawers3 · 2018-06-26T12:56:40.000Z

So I did this as work around:

$PATH = "\\server\share"
$SW = "Office","Java"
Foreach ($S in $SW) {
get-childitem -path $Path -Include *.txt -Recurse | Select-String -Pattern $S
}

still curious why it doesn’t work the other way

tahin · 2018-06-26T13:09:53.000Z

This works for me:

$Path = "\\Server\Share"
$SW = "Office", "Java"
Get-ChildItem -path $Path -Include *.txt -recurse | Select-String -Pattern $SW | OGV

This matched “Office” OR “Java”.

ethanlekki · 2018-06-26T16:12:51.000Z

Try this? Your original worked for me, and this did as well.

$Path = "\\Server\Share"
[string]$SW = "Office, Java"
Get-ChildItem -path $Path -Include *.txt -recurse | Select-String -Pattern $SW | OGV

britv8 · 2018-06-27T08:21:29.000Z

use single quotes for $SW

martin9700 · 2018-06-27T09:13:36.000Z

-Pattern is using RegEx so we should be using the Regular Expression syntax, so:

$PATH = "\\server\share"
$SW = "Office|Java"
get-childitem -path $Path -Include *.txt -Recurse | Select-String -Pattern $SW