How can I test that a variable is more than eight characters in PowerShell?
How do test if the number of characters in $dbUserName is more than eight characters?
I have been unable to locate a command or series of commands that will let me do this. I have only been able to find if the variable is null:
if ($dbUserName) {
Write-Output " You left Username blank"
$dbUserName = read-host
}
But I would like to next test like this:
if ($dbUserName [String] > 8 ) }
Write-Output " Please enter more than 8 characters "
$dbUserName=read-host " Re-enter database user name"
}
Use the length
property of the [String]
type:
if ($dbUserName.length -gt 8) {
Write-Output "Please enter more than 8 characters."
$dbUserName = Read-Host "Re-enter database username"
}
Please note that you have to use -gt
instead of >
in your if
condition. PowerShell uses the following comparison operators to compare values and test conditions:
-
-eq
= equals (==
) -
-ne
= not equals (!=
) -
-lt
= less than (<
) -
-gt
= greater than (>
) -
-le
= less than or equals (<=
) -
-ge
= greater than or equals (>=
)
You can also use -match against a Regular expression. Ex:
if ($dbUserName -match ".{8}" )
{
Write-Output " Please enter more than 8 characters "
$dbUserName=read-host " Re-enter database user name"
}
Also if you're like me and like your curly braces to be in the same horizontal position for your code blocks, you can put that on a new line, since it's expecting a code block it will look on next line. In some commands where the first curly brace has to be in-line with your command, you can use a grave accent marker (`) to tell powershell to treat the next line as a continuation.