Operators and Comparisons

PowerShell uses named operators for comparisons instead of symbols like == or !=. This avoids conflicts with the > redirection operator and keeps syntax unambiguous.

Comparison Operators

| Operator | Meaning | Example |

|----------|--------------------------|-----------------------|

| -eq | Equal to | 5 -eq 5 → True |

| -ne | Not equal to | 5 -ne 3 → True |

| -gt | Greater than | 10 -gt 5 → True |

| -lt | Less than | 3 -lt 7 → True |

| -ge | Greater than or equal | 5 -ge 5 → True |

| -le | Less than or equal | 4 -le 5 → True |

String Operators: Wildcards and Regex

`-like` uses wildcard patterns (* matches any characters, ? matches one):

"PowerShell" -like "Power*"     # True
"PowerShell" -like "P??er*"     # True

`-match` uses regular expressions and populates the $Matches automatic variable:

"Error 404" -match "\d+"        # True
$Matches[0]                      # 404

`-replace` performs regex-based substitution:

"2025-01-15" -replace "-", "/"  # 2025/01/15
"Hello World" -replace "World", "PowerShell"  # Hello PowerShell

Logical Operators

Combine conditions with logical operators:

$age = 25
($age -ge 18) -and ($age -lt 65)   # True
($age -lt 13) -or ($age -gt 65)    # False
-not ($age -eq 30)                  # True

Arithmetic Operators

10 + 3    # 13
10 - 3    # 7
10 * 3    # 30
10 / 3    # 3.33333333333333
10 % 3    # 1 (modulus — remainder)

PowerShell also supports +=, -=, *=, and /= shorthand:

$count = 10
$count += 5   # $count is now 15