Returning relevant value from another array in PowerShell

Question

I have two arrays filled with strings that are relational. I need to pull back the value from array 2 whilst iterating through array 1 in a foreach loop. How your i Achieve this? Here is my code:

$contracts = @("xytt"
               "deff"
               "mnoo")

$labels = @("London contract"
            "Dubai contract"
            "Glasgow contract")

foreach ($contract in $contracts){
#Do stuff with $contract
#Return label associated to contract object
}

How are the two arrays related? For example, when I look at 'xytt' in $contracts, how do I know which item in $labels it is related to? Unless you are stuck with this arrangement of data for some reason, I'd consider setting it up a different way. — boxdog
– boxdog, Commented Apr 27, 2018 at 12:56
Hi, They are squential. So [0]$Contract is associated to [0]$Label and so on. — V Krishan
– V Krishan, Commented Apr 27, 2018 at 12:58
Just as an FYI, for related data a Hash or Dictionary is generally a better data structure than related arrays. — EBGreen
– EBGreen, Commented Apr 27, 2018 at 13:38
How would i build these two arrays in to a hash table to query? — V Krishan
– V Krishan, Commented Apr 27, 2018 at 14:44

Janne Tuukkanen · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-27 13:00:57Z

2

You could use for loop and an index variable instead of foreach:

for ($i=0; $i -lt $contracts.Length; $i++) {
    $contract = $contracts[$i]
    $label = $labels[$i]
    Write-Host "$contract : $label"
}

answered Apr 27, 2018 at 13:00

Janne Tuukkanen

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Comments

user6811411 · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-27 13:45:15Z

0

I agree with EBGreen, a hash table is more suited to the task.

Similarly to Janne Tuukkanen's script this one uses an index,
but based on a normal ForEach.

ForEach ($contract in $contracts){
    "{0} - {1}" -f $contract, $labels[$contracts.IndexOf($contract)]
}

Sample output:

xytt - London contract
deff - Dubai contract
mnoo - Glasgow contract

answered Apr 27, 2018 at 13:45

user6811411

3 Comments

EBGreen Over a year ago

This makes a not necessarily valid assumption that all the entries in $contracts are unique.

user6811411 Over a year ago

@EBGreen You are right, a hash table would reveal that at an earlier point.

EBGreen Over a year ago

Not if you use $labels as the keys for the hash and they are unique.

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