Select-String -Quiet not returning True

Question

My script is supposed to get the TCP connection information for VNC and tell me when the connection state is ESTABLISHED. I'm stuck on trying to get a return value of True when using Select-String -Quiet.

PS C:\> $vnc = netstat -ab | select-string "winvnc4.exe" -context 1,0
PS C:\> $vnc

    TCP    0.0.0.0:5800           User:0               LISTENING
>  [winvnc4.exe]
    TCP    0.0.0.0:5900           User:0               LISTENING
>  [winvnc4.exe]
    TCP    [::]:5800              User:0               LISTENING
>  [winvnc4.exe]
    TCP    [::]:5900              User:0               LISTENING
>  [winvnc4.exe]

PS C:\> $vnc | Select-String "LISTENING" -quiet

PS C:\> $vnc | Select-String -Pattern "LISTENING" -quiet

PS C:\> $vnc | Select-String "LISTENING" -simplematch -quiet

As you can see, I tried several different parameters to get a result but nothing is returned.

Your code works as expected for me: I see "True" being returned. Have you omitted any code, no matter how unimportant? — Paul Hicks, Aug 22 '16 at 21:43
This is everything. I even closed out ISE and re-opened as Administrator (like it was the first time I tried) and it still didn't return anything. `PS C:\> get-host | select Version Version ------- 5.0.10586.494` — Clark, Aug 22 '16 at 22:02

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 22 '16 at 21:55

Your first Select-String produces a list of MatchInfo objects. The information you're after is stored in the Context property of these. You need to expand that before you can run another Select-String on it.

$vnc | Select-Object -Expand Context |
    Select-Object -Expand PreContext |
    Select-String 'LISTENING' -SimpleMatch -Quiet

On PowerShell v3 and newer you can use member enumeration to make that a little more compact:

$vnc | ForEach-Object { $_.Context.PreContext } |
    Select-String 'LISTENING' -SimpleMatch -Quiet

Select-String -Quiet not returning True

1 Answers1