What are PowerShell comparison operators?

PowerShell comparison operators are used to compare values. There are four different categories of comparison operators in PowerShell. They are as follows:

1. Equality operators
2. Matching operators
3. Replacement operators
4. Containment operators
5. Type checking operators

Equality operators

The equality operators are used to check whether two values are equal or not, lesser or greater than one another.

Syntax

<left hand side> <operator> <right hand side>

Comparison can be case-sensitive or case-insensitive in nature. Hence, to perform a case-sensitive comparison, prefix the above operators with c, such as -ceq, -cne, -clt, -cgt etc.

Similarly, to perform a case-insensitive comparison prefix the above operators with i i.e -ieq, -ine, -ilt, -igt etc.

Code example

The following code is executed in the terminal below:

$a=10  
$b=5
($a -eq $b)
($a -gt $b)
($b -le $a)

Here, we define two variables, a and b, and apply different equality operators.

Matching operators

The matching operators are used to check whether the value matches the specified pattern or not.

Syntax

<string[]> [-like | -notlike]  <wildcard-expression>
<string[]> [-match | -notmatch] <regular-expression>

Matching can be case-sensitive or case-insensitive in nature. Hence, to perform a case-sensitive matching prefix, use the above operators with c such as -clike, -cnotlike, -cmatch, -cnotmatch.

Similarly, to perform a case-insensitive matching prefix, use the above operators with i, such as -ilike, -inotlike, -imatch, -inotmatch.

Code example

The following code is executed in the following terminal:

pwsh
$a="Educative"  
$b="edu*"  
$a -ilike $b
$b="Edu*"  
$a -like $b
$a -notlike $b
$a="Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday"
$b="Wed"  
$a -match $b  

Here, we define two variables, a and b, and apply different matching operators.

Replacement operators

The replacement operators are used to replace the string matching the given regex with a replacement value.

Syntax

<input> -replace <regular-expression>, <substitute>

Replacement can be case-sensitive or case-insensitive in nature. Hence, to perform a case-sensitive replacement, prefix the above operators with c such as -creplace.

Similarly, to perform a case-insensitive replacement prefix the above operators with i, such as -ireplace.

Code example

The following code is executed in the below terminal.

$a="Educative and edpresso"  
$a -replace "edpresso" , "Answers"   

Here, we define two variables, a and b, and apply different replacement operators.

Containment operators

The containment operators are used to check whether a collection contains a value or not.

Syntax

<Collection> [-contains | -notcontains] <Test-object>
<Test-object> [-in | -notin] <Collection>

Containment can be case-sensitive or case-insensitive in nature. Hence, to perform a case-sensitive containment check prefix the above operators with c, such as -ccontains, -cnotcontains,-cin, cnotin.

Similarly, to perform a case-insensitive contains prefix the above operators with i, such as -icontains, -inotcontains,-iin, inotin.

Code example

The following code is executed in the below terminal.

$a="Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday"
$b="Wednesday"  
$a -contains $b
$a -notcontains $b
$b -in $a
$b -notin $a

Here, we define two variables, a and b, and apply different containment operators.

Type checking operators

The type checking operators are used to check whether both the given objects are of the same type or not.

Syntax

<object> -is <type-reference>
<object> -isnot <type-reference>

Code example

The following code is executed in the following terminal:

$a="hello"
$a -is [Int]
$a -isnot [Int]
$a -is [string]

Here, we define a variables a and apply different type check operators.