An anchor does not match a character; instead, it matches what comes before (or after) a character:
|
Description |
Character |
Example |
|
Beginning of a string |
^ |
'aba' -match '^a' |
|
End of a string |
$ |
'cbc' -match 'c$' |
|
Word boundary |
\b |
'Band and Land' -match '\band\b' |
Anchors are useful where a character, string, or word may appear elsewhere in a string and the position is critical.
For example, there might be a need to get values from the PATH environment variable that starts with a specific drive letter. One approach to this problem is to use the start of a string anchor; in this case, retrieving everything that starts with the C drive:
$env:PATH -split ';' | Where-Object { $_ -match '^C' }
Alternatively, there may be a need to get every path that is three or more...
