7.11 Find Items in an Array Greater or Less Than a Value

Problem

You have an array and want to find all elements greater or less than a given item or value.

Solution

To find all elements greater or less than a given value, use the -gt, -ge, -lt, and -le comparison operators:

PS > $array = "Item 1","Item 2","Item 3","Item 1","Item 12"
PS > $array -ge "Item 3"
Item 3
PS > $array -lt "Item 3"
Item 1
Item 2
Item 1
Item 12

Discussion

The -gt, -ge, -lt, and -le operators are useful ways to find elements in a collection that are greater or less than a given value. Like all other PowerShell comparison operators, these use the comparison rules of the items in the collection. Since the array in the Solution is an array of strings, this result can easily surprise you:

PS > $array -lt "Item 2"
Item 1
Item 1
Item 12

The reason for this becomes clear when you look at the sorted array—Item 12 comes before Item 2 alphabetically, which is the way that PowerShell compares arrays of strings:

PS > $array | Sort-Object
Item 1
Item 1
Item 12
Item 2
Item 3

For more information about the -gt, -ge, -lt, and -le operators, see “Comparison Operators”.

See Also

“Comparison Operators”