Powershell Arrays

Powershell array is a type of data structure, created to store a series of items and each item has its own unique array index number which allows users to access specific addresses or index number data. We use arrays to store multiple values separated by a comma.

Example:

$var = 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 31

$var = 1..5

In the above example we declared an array (Int value type) using the assignment operator =, we stored 5 values in the array and in the second array we stored numeric numbers 1 to 5.

In Powershell objects of an array is system.object, to know the array data type we use the get GetType() method, see the below examples.

PS C:\ $var = 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 31
PS C:\ $var.gettype()

OutPut:

IsPublic   IsSerial Name     BaseType
——– ——– —- ——–
True        True     Object[] System.Array

Declaring the array using the sub-expression operator

The array declared using the operator @(…) is really important and one needs to understand, we will be dealing with the large code scripts with custom objects and functions. Let’s use our array operator to declare an array.

$Var3 = @()

The above example has no objects or zero objects stored in it, let’s store something inside of it.

$var3 = @(“Hello I’m Raja”, “I’m Learning Powershell”, It’s Day1 so far”, “More 14 days to go!”)

The above array has 4 values in its index, to check the size of the index we have a property .count, here is how to write it.

$var3 = @("Hello Raja", "I'm Learning Powershell", It's Day1 so far", "More 14 days to go!")
$var3.count

Output:

How to access the array index values and stored information sequentially, Let’s take the above array again.

$var3 = @(“Hello Raja”, “I’m Learning Powershell”, It’s Day1 so far”, “More 14 days to go!”)

This array size is 4, which means there are 4 values stored in it, here is how we need to access.

Index Number	Data Inside an Array
$var3[0]	Hello My Name is Raja
$var3[1]	I’m Learning Powershell
$var3[2]	It’s Day1 so far
$var3[3]	More 14 Days to go!

Let’s write a script to print the same on the screen!

$var3 = @("Hello I'm Raja", "I'm Learning Powershell", It's Day1 so far", "More 14 days to go!")

Foreach ($var in $var3)
{
    $var
}

Output:

Hello My Name is Raja

I’m Learning Powershell

It’s Day1 so far

More 14 Days to go!

like we discussed in our day 6 post, there are important methods and properties of an array, let’s see how to get them on screen.

Get-Member

This is the topmost command or most useful command one must learn, this command gives you the members, properties, and methods of objects and commands.

Syntax

Get-Member [-InputObject <PSObject>]  [[-Name] <String[]>]

#Examples

Get-Process | Get-Member

$raja =  "I'm learning Powershell"

$raja | get-member

#The above example commands bring all the objects, properties and methods are available

Now, let’s use it for our array $var3

$var3 | get-member

output

Name	MemberType
—-	———-
Clone	Method
CompareTo	Method
Contains	Method
CopyTo	Method
EndsWith	Method
Equals	Method
GetEnumerator	Method
GetHashCode	Method
GetType	Method
GetTypeCode	Method
IndexOf	Method
IndexOfAny	Method
Insert	Method

Deleting an array

To delete an array or a file, or a folder there is a command available in powershell Remove-Item.

Remove-Item variable:$var3

Thank you for reading this article, if you have any questions please let us know.

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