Need help in regex function in PowerShell

Question

I've below sample text in a text file and wanted to get the value after id to be captured in a variable for later use.

id                          : 42cdb643-0a11-416b-b66b-7bb28a9a20ea
isReadOnly                  : False
somestring                   : False
somestring                   : {}
name                        : 

id                          : d006d69e-8d04-48d7-8806-cdc39c18e679
somestring                  : False
somestring                  : False
somestring                  : 822F0340-818A-4F23-AA78-633B6436913F
upstreamDataflowsOfDatasets : {}

I have the same set of data in the text file. I'm looking for a PowerShell code which will scan the text and return value for id as 42cdb643-0a11-416b-b66b-7bb28a9a20ea and so on.

Answer 1

Maybe,

\bid\s+:\s*\b([0-9a-f]{8}\b-[0-9a-f]{4}-[0-9a-f]{4}-[0-9a-f]{4}-\b[0-9a-f]{12})\b

would probably work OK, and your desired id value is in the capturing group $1 .

Demo

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If you wish to simplify/modify/explore the expression, it's been explained on the top right panel of regex101.com . If you'd like, you can also watch in this link , how it would match against some sample inputs.

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RegEx Circuit

jex.im visualizes regular expressions:

Source

Answer 2

To get all the id property values from your text file, use a relatively simple regex with the Select-String cmdlet:

Select-String '^id\s+:\s+(.*)' File.txt | foreach { $_.Matches.Groups[1].Value }

With your sample text, this yields (an array of [string] s):

42cdb643-0a11-416b-b66b-7bb28a9a20ea
d006d69e-8d04-48d7-8806-cdc39c18e679

Explanation:

• Regex ^id\s+:\s+(.*) finds lines that start with ( ^ ) string id , followed by one or more whitespace chars. ( \s+ ), a : and more whitespace, and captures whatever remains on the line ( .* ) in a capture group ( (...) ).

• Select-String passes only matching lines through.

• The foreach ( ForEach-Object ) command accesses the details of the regex match ( $_.Matches ), whose .Groups property contains the capture-group matches; index [1] is the first (and only) capture group's match, and its .Value property contains the matched text, which is the ID of interest.