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I have the following code:

$TodayDate = Get-Date -Format "dd-MM-yyyy"
$Student = Student01 - Project 01-02 - $TodayDate

Write-Host -NoNewline -ForegroundColor White "$Student"; Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green " - was delivered!"

This script returns in the console:

Student01 - Project 01-02 - dd-MM-yyyy - was delivered

How is it possible to return only everything after the first "-"?, that is Project 01-02 - dd-MM-yyyy - was delivered?

I thought about using .split, but I couldn't make it work so that it returns everything after the first "-".

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    You could use -Split to split it in 2, then grab the 2nd string after -. -Replace could also work here. Can you update your post with your attempts at this? Commented Dec 3, 2022 at 18:09
  • I couldn't get it to work with -split, but I used .Replace and it worked, the final script looked like this: Write-Host -NoNewline -ForegroundColor White "$(($Student).Replace("Student01 -", "$null"))"; Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green " - was delivered!" Commented Dec 3, 2022 at 19:05
  • $student = "Student01 - Project 01-02 - dd-MM-yyyy - was delivered" $index = $student.IndexOf("-") $student = $student.Substring($index + 1).Trim() Write-Host $student Commented Dec 3, 2022 at 19:26

1 Answer 1

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Your problem boils down to wanting to remove a prefix from a string.

Given that the prefix to remove cannot be defined as a static, literal string, but is defined by the (included) first occurrence of a separator, you have two PowerShell-idiomatic options:

  • Use the -split operator, which allows you to limit the number of resulting tokens; if you limit them to 2, everything after the first separator is returned as-is; thus, the 2nd (and last) token (accessible by index [-1]) then contains the suffix of interest:

    $str = 'Student01 - Project 01-02 - dd-MM-yyyy - was delivered'

# Split by ' - ', and return at most 2 tokens, then extract the 2nd (last) token.
# -> 'Project 01-02 - dd-MM-yyyy - was delivered'
($str -split ' - ', 2)[-1]

  • Use the -replace operator, which (like -split by default) is regex-based, and allows you to formulate a pattern that matches any prefix up to and including the first separator, which can then be removed:

    $str = 'Student01 - Project 01-02 - dd-MM-yyyy - was delivered'

# Match everything up to the *first* ' - ', and remove it.
# Note that not specifying a *replacement string* (second RHS operator)
# implicitly uses '' and therefore *removes* what was matched.
# -> 'Project 01-02 - dd-MM-yyyy - was delivered'
$str -replace '^.+? - '
    • For an explanation of the regex (^.+? - ) and the ability to experiment with it, see this regex101.com page.
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2 Comments

Your explanation could not have been better! I'm a beginner, especially in the PowerShell language, so I always like to understand the reason for things, that way I can evolve. I didn't know about the application of the regex (^.+? - ), I found it very interesting, it makes the job a lot easier and increases the possibilities. I also really liked the website you indicated, I didn't know it, I'll probably use it a lot. Thank you very much for your attention and patience!
I'm glad to hear it helped, and thanks for the nice feedback, @TyroneHirt. Yes. regex101.com is a great site, both for studying and troubleshooting regular expressions (regexes). Note that you'll have to tweak the defaults to make it work like PowerShell, as described in this answer.

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