Using RegEx matches with PowerShell

Question

I have a massive library of music, in which I am using PowerShell/RegEx to find particular songs. I am having trouble finding only the exact artist I need. For example, this code:

$artist = "Paul Young"
$allsongsRAW = Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Music" -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.Extension -eq ".mp3"}
($allsongsRAW -match "(\s*$artist\s(-|\W)\s*)" | Sort-Object {Get-Random}).Name

Returns:

Paul Young - Everything Must Change.mp3
Paul Young - Come Back And Stay.mp3
Paul Young - Everytime You Go Away.mp3
John Paul Young - Love Is In The Air.mp3
Paul Young - Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home).mp3
Paul Young - What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted.mp3
Paul Young - Love of the Common People.mp3

And this code:

$artist = "Queen"
$allsongsRAW = Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Music" -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.Extension -eq ".mp3"}
($allsongsRAW -match "(\s*$artist\s(-|\W)\s*)" | Sort-Object {Get-Random}).Name

Returns:

Storm Queen - Look Right Through (Jamie Jones Remix).mp3
Queen - The Invisible Man.mp3
Queen - Don't Stop Me Now.mp3
Storm Queen - Look Right Through (MK Dub III).mp3
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody.mp3
Queen - I'm In Love With My Car.mp3
Queen - One Vision.mp3
Queen - A Kind Of Magic.mp3
Queen - Radio Ga Ga.mp3
Queen - Killer Queen.mp3
Queen - You're My Best Friend.mp3
Queen - Fat Bottomed Girls.mp3
Queen - Headlong.mp3
Queen - I Want It All.mp3
Queen - Somebody To Love.mp3
Queen - Bicycle Race.mp3
Queen - Crazy little thing called love.mp3
Queen - Body Language.mp3
Queen - Another One Bites The Dust.mp3
Queen - We Are The Champions.mp3
Queen - Tie Your Mother Down.mp3
Queen - Under Pressure.mp3
Queen - We Will Rock You.mp3
Queen - I Want To Break Free.mp3
Queen - Flash.mp3
Queen - Fight From The Inside.mp3

As you can see, the Regular Expression I am using is picking up other Artists with a similar name, especially artists with other names proceeding the search criteria.

How can I tweak the RegEx to only display the artist I need?

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-07 00:49:51Z

12

Use the carat symbol to indicate the start of a string:

$allsongsRAW -match "^\s*$artist\s(-|\W)\s*"

I eliminated the outer parentheses you had, because they appear to be extraneous.

Also, you can move the matching into the Where-Object condition:

Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Music" -Recurse `
| Where-Object {($_.Extension -eq ".mp3") -and ($_.Name -match "^\s*$artist\s(-|\W)\s*")} `
| Sort-Object {Get-Random} `
| Select-Object -ExpandProperty Name;

edited Jul 7, 2021 at 0:49

Peter Mortensen

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answered Nov 1, 2015 at 4:14

Bacon Bits

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