I would like to request some help with extracting out some characters that are returned from a Powershell query.
The query is:
$x = Get-Package -Provider "Programs" -Name "*SomeWindowsApplication*" | Select-Object -Property FastPackageReference | Out-String
The returned format is
FastPackageReference
---------------------
hklm32\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{80F3CCC1-BBAF-45DD}
I am trying to extract (to a variable) just the value returned within the { } curly brackets
When using
$x.TrimStart("hklm32")
or
$x.Trim("hklm32")
neither appear to make any change to the string.
I've tested that it is a string using $x.GetType()
The outcome I require is a variable eg: $appvalue which when queried returns the value eg: {80F3CCC1-BBAF-45DD} including the { } brackets.
Thanks, much appreciated for any assistance.
update: a colleague of mine suggested this code, which works but it assumes the GUID is always 38 characters. (might not be a problem for this application though)
$GUID=$x.substring($x.IndexOf("{"),38)
Let me complement Theo's helpful answer, which shows advanced regex techniques, with simpler alternatives, if the following assumption can be made:
Given that it looks like the substring of interest is the last \-separated token, an alternative to using a regex is to treat the string as a path and extract its leaf (file-name) component via Split-Path:
# Get the property value(s) of interest.
$x = (Get-Package -Provider Programs -Name *SomeWindowsApplication*).FastPackageReference
# -> '{80F3CCC1-BBAF-45DD}', with your sample data
Split-Path -Leaf $x
A more concise regex-solution is possible too, using a -replace operation:
$x -replace '^[^{]+'
The regex matches from the start of the input string (^) one or more characters (+) that are not { ([^{]), i.e. everything up to but not including {; by not specifying a replacement string, the matched part is replaced with the empty string i.e. effectively removed, leaving only the {...} part at the end.