How do I loop through a string read from a file against a fixed set of characters individually and if they match print the string in powershell - powershell

Question

I currently have a foreach loop, that gets content from a small dictionary file (only strings over 3 characters). I am looking to compare each character in the $line against my other characters, in this case "b" "i" "n" "g" "o" so that if all the characters in $line are in bingo, then it prints the word. If not it loops to the next word.
So far I have:
foreach($line in Get-Content Desktop/dict.txt | Sort-Object Length, { $_ })
The bit I can't get (not too familiar with powershell) is this:
if($line.length -gt 3){
if( i in $line == 'b')
if( i in $line == 'i')
if( i in $line == 'n')
if( i in $line == 'g')
if( i in $line == 'o')
write-output $line
}
}

Answer 1

If I understood correctly, if you want to check if $line is contained in bingo you could use the -match for case insensitive and -cmatch for case sensitive operators. See Comparison Operators.
For example:
PS /> 'bingo' -match 'ing'
True
PS /> 'bingo' -match 'bin'
True
PS /> 'bingo' -match 'ngo'
True
The code could look like this:
foreach($line in Get-Content Desktop/dict.txt | Sort-Object Length, { $_ })
{
if($line.length -gt 3 -and 'bingo' -match $line)
{
$line
# you can add break here to stop this loop if the word is found
}
}
Edit
If you want to check if 3 or more characters in bingo (in any order) are contained in $line, there are many ways to do this, this is the approach I would take:
# Insert magic word here
$magicWord = 'bingo'.ToCharArray() -join '|'
foreach($line in Get-Content Desktop/dict.txt | Sort-Object Length, { $_ })
{
# Remove [Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions]::IgnoreCase if you want it to be Case Sensitive
$check = [regex]::Matches($line,$magicWord,[Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions]::IgnoreCase)
# If 3 or more unique characters were matched
if(($check.Value | Select-Object -Unique).count -ge 3)
{
'Line is: {0} || Characters Matched: {1}' -f $line,-join $check.Value
}
}
Demo
Given the following words:
$test = 'ngob','ibgo','gn','foo','var','boing','ingob','oubingo','asdBINGasdO!'
It would yield:
Line is: ngob || Characters Matched: ngob
Line is: ibgo || Characters Matched: ibgo
Line is: boing || Characters Matched: boing
Line is: ingob || Characters Matched: ingob
Line is: oubingo || Characters Matched: obingo
Line is: asdBINGasdO! || Characters Matched: BINGO

Answer 2

So you want to get back any words that are the same length and have the same characters no matter the order?
$dict = #(
'bingo'
'rambo'
'big'
'gobin'
'bee'
'ebe'
'been'
'ginbo'
)
$word = 'bingo'
$dict |
Where-Object { $_.length -eq $word.Length } |
ForEach-Object {
$dictwordLetters = [System.Collections.Generic.List[char]]::new($_.ToCharArray())
$word.ToCharArray() | ForEach-Object {
$dictwordLetters.Remove($_) | Out-Null
}
if (-not $dictwordLetters.Count) {
$_
}
}
The following will be the output
bingo
gobin
ginbo

Answer 3

By taking parts of both answers I was able to get the result I was after. As I am new to this, not sure how to thank #martin and #santiago for their work.
This was the code that was put together, which was pretty much taking the dictionary file and then rather than a fixed string size made it greater than 3:
$dict = #(Get-Content Desktop/dict.txt | Sort-Object Length, { $_ })
$word = 'bingo'
$dict |
Where-Object { $_.length -gt 2 } |
ForEach-Object {
$dictwordLetters = [System.Collections.Generic.List[char]]::new($_.ToCharArray())
$word.ToCharArray() | ForEach-Object {
$dictwordLetters.Remove($_) | Out-Null
}
if (-not $dictwordLetters.Count) {
$_
}
}
Your assistance was greatly appreciated.

Answer 4

Here's my two cents:
$dict = 'apple', 'brown', 'green', 'cake', 'bin', 'pear', 'big', 'milk', 'bio', 'bong', 'bingo', 'bodings', 'gibson'
# the search term as string
$term = 'bingo'
# merge the unique characters into a regex like '[bingo]+'
$chars = '[{0}]+' -f (($term.ToCharArray() | Select-Object -Unique) -join '')
# loop over the array (lines in the text file)
$dict | ForEach-Object {
# get all matched characters, uniqify and join if there are more matches.
$found = (($_ | Select-String -Pattern $chars -AllMatches).Matches.Value | Select-Object -Unique ) -join '' | Where-Object { $_.Length -ge 3 }
if ($found) {
# outputting an object better explains what is matched in which line
[PsCustomObject]#{
Line = $_
CharactersMatched = $found
}
# of course, you can also simply output the found matching characters
# $found
}
}
Output:
Line CharactersMatched
---- -----------------
brown bon
bin bin
big big
bio bio
bong bong
bingo bingo
bodings boing
gibson gibon

Answer 5

The previous answers all seem overly complicated. If you are trying to match strings then that sounds like a problem that requires a regular expression, and if that is the case then Select-String would be a better option than Get-Content. Below is an example, I am not sure if it is exactly right for your needs but should point you in the right direction:
Select-String 'Desktop/dict.txt' -pattern '^[bingo]{3,}$'