Using the "like" operator

Hi
I'm playing with the new VMware commandlet. When I run the following command I get this result:

Get-VM | Get-HardDisk

result:

Filename        : [LocalStore01] w-vcenter/w-vcenter.vmdk
ID              : VirtualMachine-vm-374/2000
Name            : Hard Disk 1

Filename        : [LocalStore02] TMP-WinXP-SP2-UK/TMP-WinXP-SP2-UK.vmdk
ID              : VirtualMachine-vm-427/2000
Name            : Hard Disk 1

Now I only want the harddisks from [LocalStore02], so I tried this:

Get-VM | Get-HardDisk | where { $_.Filename  -like  "[LocalStore02]" }

but this doesn't return any results.

Also tried with * or % but I cant get a script that works.

Who can help out?

Gabrie

Why not simply drop the brackets?  That's what is messing things up.

Get-VM | Get-HardDisk | where { $_.Filename  -like  "*LocalStore02*" }

Otherwise you'll need to escape the characters

Get-VM | Get-HardDisk | where { $_.Filename  -like  "*\[LocalStore02\]*" }

I think that should do the trick.

Hi
 
Thx, I solved it through another forum... seems that instead of -like I should've used -match
 
Gabrie
 

Using -match will give you more hits without needing wildcards, which for you may be all that you need. You can still use wildcards, but be careful.  Look at this:

PS C:\test> dir | where {$_.name -match "test?.txt"}


    Directory: Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\test


Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name
----                -------------     ------ ----
-a---        10/22/2007   9:59 AM         86 contest.txt
-a---        10/22/2007  10:06 AM        136 test.txt

Compared to:

PS C:\test> dir | where {$_.name -like "test?.txt"}


    Directory: Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\test


Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name
----                -------------     ------ ----
-a---         8/29/2007  10:21 AM        126 test1.txt
-a---         8/29/2007  10:21 AM        136 test2.txt

If I'm looking for files that start with test and then any single character, the latter approach is better.  Powershell offers many ways to match and find strings, including regular expressions.

Run:
PS C:\test> help about_comparison_operators

to learn more.