How do I "get" the Contains method?

PowerShell Help
1

Sir/Madam,

I am learning the simple string methods in PS (which are .NET’s, I am told).
So far, CompareTo, [string]::Compare, StartsWith, EndsWith, ToLower, ToUpper, Replace all work well – i.e., PS ISE recognizes them. But when I use Contains, I get an error message stating that this is not recognized as a valid cmdlet or function.

Indeed, when I type ‘Con …’ the cycling process does not pop up the usual anticipated list of valid names.
My configuration must be lacking something. I have PS 5.1.14409.1012 on Windows 7 (64-bit) with latest fixes.

Would be grateful for any advice, tips or references.
Thanks in advance!

2

System.String objects in PowerShell have a contains method. If you want to see all the methods of an object, pipe the object to get-member. For example:

$foo = “This creates a string object”

$foo | gm

So if I wanted to use the contains method with the new $foo object I would just do the following example
$foo.contains(“creates”)

3

Thank you very much Mike … it now works. But I must be missing something fundamental in my understanding of PS as it relates to using existing methods in .NET. I cannot understand why the first few times I was writing simple 1-line code such as:
$a = “example”
$d = $a.Contains(“ample”)
I was getting the error message. And then a few repeated commands later, the error message no longer appears.
I hope to figure this out in due time.

Sincere thanks for your help.

4 
set-psreadlineoption -EditMode Emacs

$a = 'example'


$a.gettype()

IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     True     String                                   System.Object


$a.  # and press tab to see methods

Length            GetType           PadLeft           ToChar            ToLowerInvariant  ToUpperInvariant
Clone             GetTypeCode       PadRight          ToCharArray       ToSByte           Trim
CompareTo         IndexOf           Remove            ToDateTime        ToSingle          TrimEnd
Contains          IndexOfAny        Replace           ToDecimal         ToString          TrimStart
CopyTo            Insert            Split             ToDouble          ToType            Chars
EndsWith          IsNormalized      StartsWith        ToInt16           ToUInt16
Equals            LastIndexOf       Substring         ToInt32           ToUInt32
GetEnumerator     LastIndexOfAny    ToBoolean         ToInt64           ToUInt64
GetHashCode       Normalize         ToByte            ToLower           ToUpper


$a.contains   # run it without the parentheses to see the definition

OverloadDefinitions
-------------------
bool Contains(string value)


[string}:: # and press tab for static methods

Empty               Concat              Format              IsNullOrEmpty       new
Compare             Copy                Intern              IsNullOrWhiteSpace  ReferenceEquals
CompareOrdinal      Equals              IsInterned          Join


[string]::format    # run it without the parentheses to see the definition

OverloadDefinitions
-------------------
static string Format(string format, System.Object arg0)
static string Format(string format, System.Object arg0, System.Object arg1)
static string Format(string format, System.Object arg0, System.Object arg1, System.Object arg2)
static string Format(string format, Params System.Object[] args)
static string Format(System.IFormatProvider provider, string format, System.Object arg0)
static string Format(System.IFormatProvider provider, string format, System.Object arg0, System.Object arg1)
static string Format(System.IFormatProvider provider, string format, System.Object arg0, System.Object arg1,
System.Object arg2)
static string Format(System.IFormatProvider provider, string format, Params System.Object[] args)