Using regex to get substring for multiple possible strings

Question

I'm not very good at regex with powershell and could use some help. The reason I'm using regex here is to accomidate for whitespaces (and any other text I can't think of atm that is not expected), so then the junk is stripped away to get the value that is wanted.

I'm trying the following code...

[String[]]$listOfStrings = @(' token = true ', ' token = false ', ' token = True ', ' token = False ')

For ($stringNumber = 0; $stringNumber -lt $listOfStrings.length; $stringNumber++)
{
    [String]$stringTest = ($listOfStrings[$stringNumber] -replace '*token*=','').Trim()
    Write-Host $stringTest
}

The output should be the following...

true
false
True
False

However, I'm getting the following error message...

Invalid regular expression pattern: *token*=.
At :line:5 char:63
+       [String]$stringTest = ($listOfStrings[$stringNumber] -replace <<<<  '*token*=','').Trim()

Any help is much appreciated.

Kory Gill · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-29 01:42:23Z

2

Use:

[String]$stringTest = ($listOfStrings[$stringNumber] -replace '.*token.*=','').Trim()

Notice the .*.

You may also want to reference https://regex101.com/ in the future when you are writing your regular expressions. Many find that site quite useful.

answered Mar 29, 2016 at 1:42

Kory Gill

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1 Comment

Fiddle Freak Over a year ago

Unfortunately my work blocks that website, but I'll check it out and save as favs when I get home. Thanks a lot :)

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