Extract string using Powershell between two points of reference - powershell

Question

I am trying to extract a string of data from text file that I downloaded using EWS. I am using powershell to do this. A snippet of the file is as follows.
<table class="button" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0; overflow:
hidden; padding: 0; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 100%;"><tbody>
<tr style="padding: 0; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><td style="-moz-hyphens: none;
-webkit-hyphens: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; background: #049FD9;
border: none; border-collapse: collapse !important; border-radius: 2px; color: #fff; display: block; font-family: 'Helvetica-Light','Arial',sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: lighter; hyphens: none; line-height:19px; margin: 0; padding: 8px 16px; text-align: center; vertical-align: top; width: auto
!important; word-break: keep-all;">
<a href="https://www.website.com:443/idb/setPassword?t=BcHJEoIgAADQD%2BKQjqZ4VEKtBHLJJm82uWDuxCR%2Bfe%2B58Rl9HRz6QddWkO5MLDXuF6e9m%2Bo0z%2FCVS%2B9IenAp5m5yTfYRa%2BAn4jdWHHF7HTyqRZiRRiNDEE%2BK7ZJywLKeNCTj4ewu4QNu02qXB0ZTXTyxXADwaLeluZGVPCxGXunpVcHbiCVAWRR7ykqGensLVBsqNUpl%2FQE%3D"
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: none; font-weight: 100; color: #fff; font-family: 'Helvetica-Light','Arial',sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: lighter; line-height: 32px; text-decoration: none;">Get Started</a> </td></tr></tbody></table></td>
I want to extract this part BcHJEoIgAADQD%2BKQjqZ4VEKtBHLJJm82uWDuxCR%2Bfe%2B58Rl9HRz6QddWkO5MLDXuF6e9m%2Bo0z%2FCVS%2B9IenAp5m5yTfYRa%2BAn4jdWHHF7HTyqRZiRRiNDEE%2BK7ZJywLKeNCTj4ewu4QNu02qXB0ZTXTyxXADwaLeluZGVPCxGXunpVcHbiCVAWRR7ykqGensLVBsqNUpl%2FQE%3D
I've tried -matches and using regex lookbehinds and forwards but nothing seems to be able to grab that part only.
Thought something like this might work
$a = Get-Content $path
$a -match '(?<=setPassword\?t\=)(.+)(?=" style)'
$matches
But it comes up blank

Answer 1

Best not to use string manipulation for this; use existing libraries and classes.
So first of all, treat your URI as a [uri]:
$uri = [System.Uri]'https://www.website.com/idb/setPassword?t=BcHJEoIgAADQD%2BKQjqZ4VEKtBHLJJm82uWDuxCR%2Bfe%2B58Rl9HRz6QddWkO5MLDXuF6e9m%2Bo0z%2FCVS%2B9IenAp5m5yTfYRa%2BAn4jdWHHF7HTyqRZiRRiNDEE%2BK7ZJywLKeNCTj4ewu4QNu02qXB0ZTXTyxXADwaLeluZGVPCxGXunpVcHbiCVAWRR7ykqGensLVBsqNUpl%2FQE%3D'
Now you can get the query string like this:
$query = $uri.Query
That will start with ?t=, so let's parse it:
$queryData = [System.Web.HttpUtility]::ParseQueryString($query)
The resulting object has a set of keys, one for each value. Since the key you want is called t, you can get the value like this:
$queryData['t']

Answer 2

So I figured out the text document I was outputting to was word wrapping part of the long URL. I ended up outputting with the -Width command so it wouldn't do that.
$email | Out-File $path -Width 9999999
Then I ended up using matches to grab the string I needed using.
$a = Get-Content $path | Where-Object {$_ -match '(?<=https:\/\/www\.website\.com:443\/idb\/setPassword\?t=)(.+)(?=" style)'}
$matches[1]
Hope that helps someone.