create search function to support wildcard char only when it is input by user - powershell

Question

I'm writing a function to search (case insensitive) through CSV files. To test this I'm using an array, and user input to check the array. I only want the search to include a wildstar if the user inputs a wildstar and the position of it matters too.
For example (in pseudo code), given the $array = "Hanna", "Anna", "Ann"
if userInput = Ann
output = "Ann"
If userInput = Ann*
output = "Ann", "Anna"
if userInput = *nna
output = "Anna"
if userInput = *nn*
output = "Hannah", "Anna", "Ann"
if userInput = *Hanna*
output = "Hanna"
if userInput = Hanna
output = "Hanna"
and so forth...
I'm using a CSV file test1.csv:
test1Column1,test1Column2,test1Column3
Hannah,12345,
Anna,1234,
Ann,2345,
I have the following code:
Function SearchContentName
{
Param ($userSearchContent)
If ($userSearchContent -Contains '`*')
{
Import-Csv test1.csv | % {if ($_.test1Column1 -Match $userSearchContent){$_.test1Column1}} | Export-Csv testresults.csv -NoTypeInformation
}
ElseIf ($userSearchContent -NotContains '`*')
{
Import-Csv test1.csv | % {if ($_.test1Column1 -Eq $userSearchContent){$_.test1Column1}} | Export-Csv testresults.csv -NoTypeInformation
}
}
Function Main
{
$userSearchContent = Read-Host "Enter Name"
SearchContentName $userSearchContent
}
Main
Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

You're using the wrong operators. Since you want to allow wildcard matches, simply use -like for all user input:
Function SearchContentName {
Param ($userSearchContent)
Import-Csv test1.csv | ForEach-Object {
if ($_.test1Column1 -like $userSearchContent) {
$_.test1Column1
}
} | Set-Content testresults.csv
}
The -match operator is for regular expressions, where you'd have to express "any number of characters" as .*, not just *. The -like operator behaves like -eq if $userSearchContent doesn't contain wildcard characters, so you don't need to distinguish between different cases.
If you want the output CSV to contain whole lines and headers, use Where-Object instead of filtering with an if nested in a ForEach-Object:
Function SearchContentName {
Param ($userSearchContent)
Import-Csv test1.csv | Where-Object {
$_.test1Column1 -like $userSearchContent
} | Export-Csv testresults.csv -NoType
}