Variable not passing to Where-Object in Powershell

Question

I have tried the "filter" and "param" options from the post -- In powershell passing variable to where-object not working -- with no luck. I am fairly new to powershell since I have not used it since 2014. Can anyone assist me in finding out why the $UName variable is not being passed to the Where-Object command?

cls

$UName = Read-Host -Prompt "Name or part of name to search"
Write-Output "Searching for: $UName, please wait"

Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties * | Where-Object {
    $_.name -like "*$UName*" -and 
    $_.company -like "*XYZ Corp*"
}  | select Name, title, company, Country, mailnickname

Pause

My only output is:

Name or part of name to search: Justin
Searching for: Justin, please wait
Press Enter to continue...

I have even tried using -Contains $UName and -Contains "$UName" yet still get the same results as above.

I have searched, and searched but cannot figure this out. Any assistance would really help!

If you remove the ```Pause``` or hit ```Enter``` do you see the output? You might be falling foul of an issue where output (implicitly) send to ```Format-Table``` is delayed for 300ms and is being blocked by the ```Pause``` - see https://stackoverflow.com/a/59331305/3156906 for more details... — mclayton, Feb 08 '23 at 20:59
Your Where-Object clause is using an undefined variable `$filter`, not `$UName`... — Theo, Feb 08 '23 at 21:07
@Theo - Corrected... In my actual script I had it correct. I have updated this post. — , Feb 08 '23 at 21:16
@mclayton - If I remove the `Pause` or hit `Enter` it just goes to `PS C:\Users\UserName\Documents>` — , Feb 08 '23 at 21:18
Why not use the Active Directory filter instead of `Where-Object` ? — Santiago Squarzon, Feb 08 '23 at 21:18
@SantiagoSquarzon - Now how would I do this? I have change the code to: `Get-ADUser -Filter { $_.name -Contains "$UName" -and $_.company -like "*XYZ Corp*"` and it errors out: Get-ADUser : Variable: '_' found in expression: $_.name is not defined. At C:\Users\K90013780\Documents\Get User Details By Name.ps1:6 char:1 + Get-ADUser -Filter { + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:) [Get-ADUser], ArgumentExcepti on + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ActiveDirectoryCmdlet:System.ArgumentException,Mic rosoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.Commands.GetADUser — , Feb 08 '23 at 21:25
`$_.company -like "*XYZ Corp*"` will this be a hardcoded value part of your query? Using the filter is not that hard, tho I recommend `-LDAPFilter` instead of `-Filter` — Santiago Squarzon, Feb 08 '23 at 21:27
@SantiagoSquarzon - Yes `$_.company -like "*XYZ Corp*"` is hard coded. I will look into `LDAPFilter` and see if it works. — , Feb 08 '23 at 21:29

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 08 '23 at 21:34

Your script can be simplified as follows, you really shouldn't query all Domain Users (-Filter *) to then filter them with PowerShell (Where-Object). Instead, you should use the Active Directory Filter. Same goes for querying all users properties (-Properties *) when you actually only need some of them (Name, title, company, Country, mailnickname).

# using Trim() to remove any excess whitespace (trailing and leading)
$UName = (Read-Host -Prompt "Name or part of name to search").Trim()
# if there was no input or input was purely whitespace
if(-not $UName) {
    # exit this script
    return
}

# if input was valid
Write-Output "Searching for: $UName, please wait"

# try to search for the user
$props = 'Name', 'title', 'company', 'Country', 'mailnickname'
Get-ADUser -LDAPFilter "(&(name=*$UName*)(company=*XYZ Corp*))" -Properties $props |
    Select-Object $props | Format-Table -AutoSize

THANK YOU!!!! after 9 years out of scripting I would have never thought of this solution! — , Feb 08 '23 at 21:37

Variable not passing to Where-Object in Powershell

1 Answers1