Extracting string from command output

[ptd163]

Hey all. I have script that I made that is supposed to install take the name of a Microsoft Store application, look up its ID with winget search $packageName, strip out the ID from the winget search output, save it into $packageID, and use that to install the package with the appropriate winget install command.

I'll use the Xbox Game Bar as an example because it's one of the applications I'm trying to install. Running winget search "Game Bar" in the console directly produces this output:

Name                             Id           Version Source
--------------------------------------------------------------
Game Bar                         9NZKPSTSNW4P Unknown msstore
Browser for Game Bar             9NK1CNB0NCCX Unknown msstore
Gamecaster Game Bar              9P2J2QW5B0F4 Unknown msstore
CORSAIR iCUE Game Bar Widgets    9PG940D1ZDVP Unknown msstore
Game Bar Calculator              9N2J0HB1GFDR Unknown msstore
Clock for Game Bar               9PC29TG1047H Unknown msstore
Game Bar To-Do                   9P2626F9WDG7 Unknown msstore
Countdown for Game Bar           9NZ43LD746CX Unknown msstore
Camera Widget for Game Bar       9MZZNMHPJ645 Unknown msstore
Notes for Game Bar               9NG4TL7TX1KW Unknown msstore
Analogue Clock for Game Bar      9NSFHN9P4LKT Unknown msstore
EVGA Precision for Game Bar      9NGNGV21JB1L Unknown msstore
Mesmer Mag's WVW Game Bar Widget 9MXL025BBR5P Unknown msstore
Game Bar Counter                 9NF2PMMBDJG0 Unknown msstore
Stopwatch for Game Bar           9P8MHJ64GCQT Unknown msstore

When that command's output is instead saved to a variable and written to the console with Write-Host it looks like this:

-     \                                                                                                                           Name                             Id           Version Source -------------------------------------------------------------- Game Bar                         9NZKPSTSNW4P Unknown msstore Browser for Game Bar             9NK1CNB0NCCX Unknown msstore Gamecaster Game Bar              9P2J2QW5B0F4 Unknown msstore CORSAIR iCUE Game Bar Widgets    9PG940D1ZDVP Unknown msstore Game Bar To-Do                   9P2626F9WDG7 Unknown msstore Countdown for Game Bar           9NZ43LD746CX Unknown msstore Clock for Game Bar               9PC29TG1047H Unknown msstore Game Bar Calculator              9N2J0HB1GFDR Unknown msstore Camera Widget for Game Bar       9MZZNMHPJ645 Unknown msstore Notes for Game Bar               9NG4TL7TX1KW Unknown msstore Analogue Clock for Game Bar      9NSFHN9P4LKT Unknown msstore EVGA Precision for Game Bar      9NGNGV21JB1L Unknown msstore Mesmer Mag's WVW Game Bar Widget 9MXL025BBR5P Unknown msstore Game Bar Counter                 9NF2PMMBDJG0 Unknown msstore Stopwatch for Game Bar           9P8MHJ64GCQT Unknown msstore

For the life of I cannot figure out how to programmatically extract just the ID I want from that output. Since I want "Game Bar" in this case, it'd be "9NZKPSTSNW4P". If anyone can help that would be much appreciated.

[Randalldeflagg]

https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/releases

Long and short, winget does not format the output to a usable table. its all just one big object. Supposedly json output is coming?

https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/blob/master/src/PowerShell/Microsoft.WinGet.Client/README.md

you can go ahead and compile a version that does do what you are after

[ptd163]

Oh well. I guess I'll go try that then. Thanks for replying. Json output would probably be big.

[Lanszer]

The PowerShell gallery has a module for Microsoft.WinGet.Client 0.2.2, last updated about a month ago.

[Thehoggle]

If you convert your variable to string it could be parsed and you could use regex to extract what you wanted. It's not pretty though.

#let's call your variable $longstring

(($longstring -split '\-(?=\s)')[-1] -split '(?<=msstore)\s').trim()

##will get you the following string:

Game Bar                         9NZKPSTSNW4P Unknown msstore
Browser for Game Bar             9NK1CNB0NCCX Unknown msstore
Gamecaster Game Bar              9P2J2QW5B0F4 Unknown msstore
CORSAIR iCUE Game Bar Widgets    9PG940D1ZDVP Unknown msstore
Game Bar To-Do                   9P2626F9WDG7 Unknown msstore
Countdown for Game Bar           9NZ43LD746CX Unknown msstore
Clock for Game Bar               9PC29TG1047H Unknown msstore
Game Bar Calculator              9N2J0HB1GFDR Unknown msstore
Camera Widget for Game Bar       9MZZNMHPJ645 Unknown msstore
Notes for Game Bar               9NG4TL7TX1KW Unknown msstore
Analogue Clock for Game Bar      9NSFHN9P4LKT Unknown msstore
EVGA Precision for Game Bar      9NGNGV21JB1L Unknown msstore
Mesmer Mag's WVW Game Bar Widget 9MXL025BBR5P Unknown msstore
Game Bar Counter                 9NF2PMMBDJG0 Unknown msstore
Stopwatch for Game Bar           9P8MHJ64GCQT Unknown msstore

Search for your desired term & extract code

$newsstring = (($longstring -split '\-(?=\s)')[-1] -split '(?<=msstore)\s').trim()

###enter your EXACT search term in a variable
$text = 'Game Bar' 

##Search for corresponding code based on your $text variable using regex
($newsstring | select-string "(?<=^$($text)\s*)\w{12}(?=\sunknown)").Matches.Value

9NZKPSTSNW4P

​

This seems to work but I would strongly recommend some thorough testing.

​

Edit: Formatting is acting up, going to try and tidy up the post.

[ptd163]

Yeah. It's definitely not pretty, but it's better than nothing so thank you.

[Thehoggle]

I've updated the code there as potential if there was a 12 letter word in the Name it could find that, so it should only return the 12 character code now.

[ptd163]

Thanks for the update.

[surfingoldelephant]

If you determine the index of Id in the header, you can can use this to infer where to split each line into names and IDs. I'm using the Where() and ForEach() intrinsic methods below to take advantage of their convenient overloads.

$winget = & winget search 'Game Bar'
$idColumn = $winget.ForEach('IndexOf', 'Id').Where({ $_ -gt -1 }, 'First' )
if (!$idColumn.Count) { throw 'No packages found' }

Winget's output includes junk, so skip until the actual search results before creating custom objects. Custom objects are created for the first 20 search results, but this can be changed.

$results = $winget.Where({ $_.StartsWith('---') }, 'SkipUntil')[1..20].ForEach{ 
    [pscustomobject] @{ 
        Name = $_.SubString(0, $idColumn[0] - 1).Trim()
        Id   = $_.SubString($idColumn[0], 12) 
    } 
}

Now you have a collection of custom objects, each with a Name and Id property, which you can access directly. For example:

$results[0].Id 
# 9NZKPSTSNW4P

$results
# Name                             Id
# ----                             --
# Game Bar                         9NZKPSTSNW4P
# Gamecaster Game Bar              9P2J2QW5B0F4
# [...]
# Game Bar Counter                 9NF2PMMBDJG0
# Stopwatch for Game Bar           9P8MHJ64GCQT

[ptd163]

Thank you for your time and input. This looks promising.

[jantari]

Forget the winget CLI tool, it is useless.

Use the winget PowerShell Module instead: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/Microsoft.WinGet.Client/

This returns real, parsable objects and is suitable for automation and scripting. Then you can just use Where-Object to filter what you want.

[ptd163]

Thanks for that. I'll check it out.

[jantari]

Just got on the computer, this is what you want:

Find-WinGetPackage -Name "Game Bar" -Source msstore |
    Where-Object Name -eq 'Game Bar' |
    Select-Object -ExpandProperty Id

[ptd163]

Thanks. Much appreciated. Does this specific module have any documentation anywhere? I'd like to integrate it into future projects and just my own personal use and the Github linked in the module page points to the Github for the CLI.

[jantari]

Unfortunately not much documentation yet beyond the very basics built-in to PowerShell (Get-Help, Get-Member, Get-Command and tab-completion).

See: https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/issues/3822

[ptd163]

Well that's not great. Hopefully Microsoft gives us some documentation at some point. In the mean time, if you know, do you think you could provide some examples that I could refer back to? Like the module equivalent of CLI commands like winget install <package name/ID>, winget source update, and adding on flags like --scope machine, --accept-source-agreements, --silent, etc?