How to use PowerShell Operators

By Tan Lee Published on Aug 26, 2024 292

PowerShell offers a variety of operators for performing operations on data. These operators fall into several categories, including arithmetic, comparison, logical, and more.

Assignment Operators

Operator	Example	Description
=	$x = 5	Assigns a value to a variable.
+=	$x += 3	Adds the right-hand side value to the left-hand side variable and assigns the result to the variable
-=	$x -= 3	Subtracts the right-hand side value from the left-hand side variable and assigns the result to the variable
*=	$x *= 3	Multiplies the left-hand side variable by the right-hand side value and assigns the result to the variable
/=	$x /= 3	Divides the left-hand side variable by the right-hand side value and assigns the result to the variable
%=	$x %= 3	Computes the modulus (remainder) of dividing the left-hand side variable by the right-hand side value and assigns the result to the variable

Arithmetic Operators

These operators are used for mathematical calculations

Operator	Example	Description
+	`5 + 3` results in `8`	Addition
-	`5 - 3` results in `2`	Subtraction
*	`5 * 3` results in `15`	Multiplication
/	`5 / 2` results in `2.5`	Division
%	`5 % 2` results in `1`	Modulus (remainder after division)
++	`$x++` increments `$x` by 1	Increment
--	`$x--` decrements `$x` by 1	Decrement

Comparison Operators

These operators compare values and return a Boolean result

Operator	Example	Description
-eq	`5 -eq 5` returns `True`	Equal
-ne	`5 -ne 3` returns `True`	Not equal
-gt	`5 -gt 3` returns `True`	Greater than
-lt	`5 -lt 3` returns `False`	Less than
-ge	`5 -ge 5` returns `True`	Greater than or equal to
-le	`5 -le 6` returns `True`	Less than or equal to
-like	`"hello" -like "h*"` returns `True`	Matches a pattern
-notlike	`"hello" -notlike "h*"` returns `False`	Does not match a pattern
-match	`"hello" -match "ell"` returns `True`	Matches a regular expression
-notmatch	`"hello" -notmatch "abc"` returns `True`	Does not match a regular expression

Logical Operators

These operators are used to perform logical operations

Operator	Example	Description
-and	`($true -and $false)` returns `False`	Logical AND
-or	`($true -or $false)` returns `True`	Logical OR
-xor	`($true -xor $false)` returns `True`	Logical XOR
-not	`-not $true` returns `False`	Logical NOT
!	`!$true` returns `False`	Negation

Array Operators

These operators are used with arrays

Operator	Example	Description
+	`$a + $b` concatenates arrays `$a` and `$b`	Array concatenation
-	`$a - $b` returns elements in `$a` but not in `$b`	Array subtraction

Type Operators

These operators are used for type checking and conversion

Operator	Example	Description
-is	`$var -is [int]` checks if `$var` is an integer	Checks if a variable is of a specified type.
-as	`$var -as [int]` attempts to cast `$var` to an integer	Tries to convert a variable to a specified type.

Redirection Operators

These operators are used for redirecting output

Operator	Example	Description
>	Get-Process > processes.txt	Redirect output to a file
>>	Get-Process >> processes.txt	Append output to a file
2>	Get-Process 2> errors.txt	Redirect error output to a file
2>>	Get-Process 2>> errors.txt	Append error output to a file