I am trying to grep some data from a variable:
Select-String -inputObject $patternstring -Pattern $regex -AllMatches
| % { $_.Matches } | % { $_.Value } -OutVariable outputValue
Write-Host $outputValue
To the same outvariable, I am trying to do string manipulation
$outputValue.Substring(1,$outputValue.Length-2);
this fails stating that outputValue is an ArrayList.
How can I convert an Arraylist to String?
As mentioned in sean_m's comment, the easiest thing to do is to simply first convert the System.Collections.ArrayList of strings to a single string by using the -join operator:
$outputValue = $($outputValue -join [Environment]::NewLine)
Once you have done this you can perform any regular string operations on $outputValue, such as the Substring() method.
Above I separate each string in the ArrayList with a new line, as that's typically the string that the -OutVariable splits the string on when converting it to an ArrayList, but you can use a different separator character/string if you want.
Try like this:
$outputvalue = Select-String -inputObject $patternstring -Pattern $regex -AllMatches |
% { $_.Matches } | % { $_.Value }
$outputValue | % { $_.Substring(1 ,$_.Length - 2)}
The parameter -outvariable in the ForEach-Object doesn't seem to capture the output of the sciptblock processed ( This in Powershell V2; thank to @ShayLevi for testing it works in V3).
If the output is a collection of values then no matter what the type of the result is , substring should fail. Try to pipe to Foreach-Object and then use substring.
UPDATE:
The OutputVariable works only in v3, see @Christian solution for v2.
Select-String -InputObject $patternstring -Pattern $regex -AllMatches | % { $_.Matches } | % { $_.Value } -OutVariable outputValue
$outputValue | Foreach-Object { $_.Substring(1,$_.Length-2) }
-outvariable isn't populate. Can you confirm this issue? thanks
Foreach-Object { $_.Substring(1,$_.Length-2) } ?