3 things.
1. Test it yourself! I saw:
PS O:\> "AB1234TEST" -match "^[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{3,6}"
True
PS O:\> "AB1234TEST" -match "^[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{3,6}$"
False
so I agree that it will match. (as always, you can use \w and \d for
characters and number. Maybe you wanted to restrict to only upper case
letters and could also do: "AB1234TEST" -match "^[A-Z]{2}\d{3,6}$")
2. Where isn't particularly fast, but for any reasonable amount of data, it
will do just fine. You can use the magic where method (google it) if you
have a newer version of powershell.
3. My understanding is that filter isn't not a regex. I don't use it much,
but iirc, it is more like a SQL where clause and not a powershell one: much
more limited filtering, but it is more efficient if it can handle search.
I think you're on the right track as is.
Thanks,
Devin Rich
Systems Administrator
On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 11:29 AM, Orlebeck, Geoffrey <
geoffrey.orleb...@montagehealth.org> wrote:
> I forgot to update one piece of the below code. I’m no longer returning
> all properties. I have it only returning the additional property of
> ‘OfficePhone’:
>
>
>
> $StdUsers = Get-ADuser -Filter {Enabled -eq $True} –Properties OfficePhone
> | Where {$_.samAccountName -match "^[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{3,6}"}
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Orlebeck, Geoffrey
> *Sent:* Monday, August 29, 2016 10:28 AM
> *To:* 'powershell@lists.myitforum.com'
> *Subject:* Get-ADUser and RegEx:
>
>
>
> All:
>
>
>
> I’m attempting filter user accounts based on samAccountName formatting.
> The standard we use is user’s initials + employee ID. For example: AB1234.
> The issue I ran into is there are some test/service accounts using a
> similar format (e.g. TEST1234) being returned when I used the initial
> regular expression of "[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{3,}". I added a carrot to the
> beginning and it now is excluding accounts that don’t begin with two
> letters. I did a spot check across my results and while it appears now only
> accounts matching our standard user criteria are returned, I was hoping for
> a sanity check:
>
>
>
> This returns standard (e.g. AB1234) and non-standard accounts (e.g.
> TEST1234):
>
> $StdUsers = Get-ADuser -Filter {Enabled -eq $True} -Properties * | Where {
> $_.samAccountName -match "[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{3,6}"}
>
>
>
> This only returns standard account naming conventions (e.g. AB1234,
> CD56789):
>
> $StdUsers = Get-ADuser -Filter {Enabled -eq $True} -Properties * | Where {
> $_.samAccountName -match "^[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{3,6}"}
>
>
>
>
>
> I was hoping this group could help me confirm two things:
>
> 1) The "^[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{3,6}" regular expression is the best one for
> matching accounts like “AB1234” while ignoring “TEST1234”. One question I
> have is would "^[A-Z]{2}[0-9]{3,6}" still match on something like
> “AB1234TEST”? I am not sure if what I have is explicitly looking from the
> start of the samAccountName for two letters followed by 3-6 digits, and
> ignoring any characters beyond.
>
> 2) Is my filtering and matching formatted efficiently using standard
> cmdlets? I tried using a regular expression within the –Filter parameter,
> but the error I received makes me think I cannot filter with regular
> expressions (at least the Get-ADUser cmdlet doesn’t support it). I know the
> mantra “filter left, format right”, still looking if there is a better way
> to accomplish this goal.
>
>
>
> In case it’s relevant, I’m doing some AD attribute settings for phone
> number formatting—some users are “(555) 555-5555” or “5555555555” and we’re
> moving towards a standard “555-555-5555”, but I first only want to pipe
> standard user accounts.
>
>
> Thank you for your time.
>
>
>
> -Geoff
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