Finding the index of a key and value within an array using a wildcard in Powershell - powershell

Question

I have been working on an issue and I was able to get done what I need to get done in a relatively decent and acceptable way but I am curious as to why I ran into some of the problems I did.
I'm not too savvy with PowerShell or C# but I have some experience with Java, C++, and a few others. So, if I overlook something really simple, you'll have to forgive me. I'm not looking for a critique of my solution, just some insight into some of the blockades I came across.
What I needed to do was use Powershell to query an LDAP setting. I needed to know MaxConnIdleTime and I needed that either assigned to a variable or accessible through a subroutine [sic] (ex $ldapPolicies.MaxConnIdleTime) so that I could run it through a conditional statement.
Here is how I accomplished it:
$ldap = Get-ADObject -SearchBase "CN=Query-Policies,CN=Directory Service,CN=Windows NT,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=$ENV:COMPUTERNAME,DC=$dc" -Filter 'ObjectClass -like "queryPolicy"' -Properties ldapadminlimits
$ldap = #($ldap.ldapadminlimits)
$ldap | %{
if($_.startswith("MaxConnIdleTime")) {
$match = $_
}
}
I tried NTDSUtil.exe, however, I couldn't redirect the "Show Values" to a text file to read from later and I couldn't write it to a variable in PowerShell.
I tried Start-Transcript and then ran NTDSUtil but it only recorded what occurred within PowerShell and not what happened in NTDSUtil.
Also, I tried giving all of the commands to NTDSUtil at once (NTDSUtil "ldap policies" "connections" "connect to server $ENV:COMPUTERNAME" q "Show Values") but PowerShell doesn't show anything in the console and I have press the exit sequence to return back to PS>.
I know that I could use LDP but I'm not too familiar with ADSI. Research appeared to say that going about attempting to get an LDPdump is a bit antiquated and I pretty much abandoned that attempt.
One of the issues that I had that caused me a small bit of frustration (and the reason I am asking this question) is why can I not search an array and find the index of an item using a wildcard? I tried doing this:
$ldap.IndexOf("MaxConnIdleTime*")
AND
$ldap.IndexOf($ldap -like "MaxConnIdleTime*")
but it always returned -1.
It would work correctly if I tried:
$ldap.IndexOf("MaxConnIdleTime=100")
given that the value was indeed 100. But I am validating that the value was correct.
I know that I could just do something like this:
if($ldap -contains "MaxConnIdleTime=100") {
DO SOMETHING...
} else {
DO SOMETHING ELSE...
}
Why is it that I can't search an array using a wildcard operator? There was no ambiguity, so, it should have worked, right?
I'm not looking for a critique of how I accomplished this, I'm just wanting to understand why it behaved like it did.
Thanks.

Answer 1

I don't think there's a straightforward "search an array by wildcard and return an index" cmdlet, method, statement, etc. in PowerShell.
.IndexOf is not designed to work with a wildcard.
When you used the -like operator on the array, you likely found only a single matching object, but -like returns an array of matches when used on an array.
Passing the array into .IndexOf() then looks for an array element that is itself an array, even if that array only has one object.
This would work:
$ldap.IndexOf(($ldap -like "MaxConnIdleTime*")[0])
As long as you always wanted to find the first one.