Additional resources for text analysis by using PowerShell

Doctor Scripto

Summary: This is a summary of some of the additional resources for working with text and Windows PowerShell.

Good day. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. So, here’s the deal. We are going along and decide to write a simple Windows PowerShell script. Before we know it, the thing has morphed into dozens of lines. And, also before we know it, we quickly find ourselves in the weeds. It begins like a day at the beach, perhaps like the one here.

And suddenly, before we know it, we are in the weeds, look around and, lo and behold, alligators. Dude!

And, all of a sudden, we are feeling as exposed as a bunny who accidentally hops into a nest of alligators.

This is the sixth post in a multi-part series of blog posts that deal with how to determine letter frequency in text files. To fully understand this post, you should read the entire series in order.

Here are the posts in the series:

1. Letter frequency analysis of text by using PowerShell
2. How to skip the beginning and ending of a file with PowerShell
3. Read a text file and do frequency analysis by using PowerShell
4. Compare the letter frequency of two text files by using PowerShell
5. Calculate percentage character frequencies from a text file by using PowerShell
6. Additional resources for text analysis by using PowerShell

A review of some of the topics that were covered this week

So, in writing a simple script to play around with the letter frequencies that occurs in a couple of text files, I ended up going over a lot of different concepts. Here is a list of the topics that were covered and a link to more information about those topics.

Reading text files: The Get-Content cmdlet

Join: the -Join operator

Converting the case of letters to all uppercase: The ToUpper() string method

Grouping objects: The Group-Object cmdlet

Sorting objects: The Sort-Object cmdlet

Arrays: Working with arrays

Adding items to arrays

Indexing into an array

Looping: the for statement

The GetEnumerator() method

Matching strings: The -match operator

Matching strings in a case sensitive fashion: The -cMatch operator

Making decisions: The if statement

Creating Functions: The function keyword

Adding parameters to a function

Calling a function

Working with string blocks: The Here-String

Counting stuff: The Measure-Object cmdlet

Selecting stuff: The Select-Object cmdlet

Creating custom properties with the Select-Object

Working with strings: General string operations

Working with the pipeline: Sending output from one cmdlet to another

I invite you to follow me on Twitter and Facebook. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum. Also check out my Microsoft Operations Management Suite Blog. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.

Ed Wilson Microsoft Scripting Guy

Doctor Scripto Scripter, PowerShell, vbScript, BAT, CMD

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