What is the Power shell's equivalent of Python's Regex Search?

Question

I found PowerShell's regex match but could not find Powershell's equivalent of Python's regex search.

The below is the example in Python.

>>> inputstring = "iqn.2007-11.com.storage:srmgrsmisvstvol2-ju7wjffssldf-df-sdf-ewr-v0dd04708bb13b686.000"
>>> match = re.search(r"(\w*-){4}(\w*)", inputstring, re.IGNORECASE)
>>> match.group()
'srmgrsmisvstvol2-ju7wjffssldf-df-sdf-ewr'

Answer 1

The PowerShell equivalent of your Python code would look somewhat like this:

$inputstring = 'iqn.2007-11.com.storage:srmgrsmisvstvol2-ju7wjffssldf-df-sdf-ewr-v0dd04708bb13b686.000'
if ($inputstring -match '(\w*-){4}(\w*)') {
    $matches[0]
}

The -match operator (which is case-insensitive by default) is used for checking a string against a regular expression. If matches are found the automatic variable $matches is populated with those matches. The matches can then be accessed by index: 0 gives the full match, 1 the first captured group, 2 the second captured group, etc.

In addition to the (implicitly case-insensitive) base version ( -match ) PowerShell comparison operators usually have explicit case-sensitive and case-insensitive versions ( -cmatch , -imatch ).

$inputstring -match '(\w*-){4}(\w*)'   # case-insensitive
$inputstring -imatch '(\w*-){4}(\w*)'  # case-insensitive
$inputstring -cmatch '(\w*-){4}(\w*)'  # case-sensitive

You can also enable or disable case-sensitivity via so-called miscellaneous constructs inside the regular expression, which take precedence over the operator's case-sensitivity:

$inputstring -imatch '(?-i)(\w*-){4}(\w*)'  # case-sensitive
$inputstring -cmatch '(?i)(\w*-){4}(\w*)'   # case-insensitive