Powershell string to number functions?

Question

I am looking for an easy way to convert numeric strings e.g. "1.78M" "1.47B" to an integer variable.

Any help is appreciated.

thanks

There is not a standard library or function for this since the 'M' and 'B' in your examples do not conform to any sort of industry standard. You could easily write a function yourself to do this. — EBGreen
– EBGreen, Commented Sep 12, 2012 at 17:48

Keith Hill · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-12 17:47:11Z

3

Are you looking for M == MB or M == 1E6? If it is the former, PowerShell understands KB, MB, GB and TB e.g.:

C:\PS> Invoke-Expression "2MB"
2097152

Big caveat here with Invoke-Expression, if you're getting the string from a user, file, i.e. an untrusted source. You have to be careful about executing it. Say the string is "2MB; Remove-Item C:\ -Recurse -Force -Whatif -EA 0", you'd have a bad day using Invoke-Expression on that string. BTW, I'm being nice here by adding the -Whatif. :-)

If it is the latter, you could do a regex -replace followed by a coercion e.g.:

C:\PS> [long]("3.34 B" -replace '(\d+)\s*(B)','$1E9')
3340000000

answered Sep 12, 2012 at 17:47

Keith Hill

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1 Comment

Barry Chum Over a year ago

Thanks Keith. I am the latter case and this "-replace" is nice. :)

latkin · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-12 17:56:33Z

1

There is nothing built in that supports suffixes like M for million, B for billion, etc. There is only built-in support for "file size" suffixes, for example 32KB -> 32768

Here's my attempt at a basic script version to address your problem. This supports multi-character suffixes if needed, or no suffix at all. It will always return an [int], so be wary of overflow (e.g. 5.5B will cause an error since it won't fit in an int). You can modify the types a bit to support bigger numbers.

function ToNumber
{
   param([string] $NumberString)

   # add other multiplier suffixes to this table
   $multipliers = @{ 'B' = 1000000000; 'M' = 1000000; 'K' = 1000; '' = 1 }

   switch -regex ($numberString)
   {
      '^(?<base>[\d\.]+)(?<suffix>\w*)$'
      {
         $base = [double] $matches['base']
         $multiplier = [int] $multipliers[$matches['suffix']]

         if($multiplier)
         {
            [int]($base * $multiplier)
         }
         else
         {
            throw "$($matches['suffix']) is an unknown suffix"
         }
      }
      default
      {
         throw 'Unable to parse input'
      }
   }
}

C:\> ToNumber '1.7B'
1700000000
C:\> ToNumber '1.7K'
1700

answered Sep 12, 2012 at 17:56

latkin

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2 Comments

Keith Hill Over a year ago

To quote Chuck Berry - "it wasn't me". :-)

Barry Chum Over a year ago

Thanks latkin. Your function is more sophisticated than mine. btw, it wasn't me too. :)

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