Basic programming syntax in PowerShell for C# developers

Recently I started working on PowerShell as I was working on C# for a long time. Initially, it took me a while to get familiar with the PowerShell syntaxes. That’s why I thought to put all my google searches over here in this single post. I hope this will help you during your transition period from C# to PowerShell.

How to use for loop in PowerShell?

# declare & initialize an array
[string[]] $names = @("Ankush", "Virat", "Sachin", "MS Dhoni")
 
# call for loop
For ($i=0; $i -lt $names.count ; $i++) {

	[string]$playerName =  $names[$i]

	Write-Output $playerName
}

How to use foreach in PowerShell?

# declare & initialize an array
[string[]] $names = @("Ankush", "Virat", "Sachin", "MS Dhoni")

# call foreach
Foreach ($playerName in $names)
{   
	Write-Output $playerName
}

How to use if block in PowerShell?

[bool] $result = $true

if($result){
	Write-Output "Success"
}

Declare an array in PowerShell?

# declare & initialize an array
[string[]] $names = @("Ankush", "Virat", "Sachin", "MS Dhoni")

How to check if array contains a value in PowerShell?

# declare & initialize an array
[string[]] $names = @("Ankush", "Virat", "Sachin", "MS Dhoni")
 
if($names.Contains("Ankush")){
	Write-Output "Yes Ankush Exists"
}

How to add an item in PowerShell?

# declare & initialize an array
[string[]] $names = @("Ankush", "Virat", "Sachin", "MS Dhoni")
 
# add item in array
$names += "Ishant"

How to use less than, equals to etc. operators in PowerShell?

$i = 4
$j = 8

# use -eq for equal operator
Write-Output ($i -eq $j)

# use -le for less than or equal operator
Write-Output ($i -le $j)

How to save a JSON object to a file in PowerShell?

[string]$pathToSave =  "C:\Users\ankushjain01\Desktop\"

$apiResult =  Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "http://example.com/getusers" -Method Get -ContentType "application/json"

# code to save json
$apiResult | ConvertTo-Json -depth 100 | Set-Content "$pathToSave\users.json"

How to call a REST API using PowerShell?

# physical path to save json result
[string]$pathToSave =  "C:\Users\ankushjain01\Desktop\"

# Base64-encodes the Personal Access Token (PAT) appropriately
[string]$base64AuthInfo = [Convert]::ToBase64String([Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes(("{0}:{1}" -f $user,$password)))

# this method invokes rest api & downloads it's result into json object
$apiResult =  Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "http://example.com/getusers" -Method Get -ContentType "application/json" -Headers @{Authorization=("Basic {0}" -f $base64AuthInfo)}

# code to save json
$apiResult | ConvertTo-Json -depth 100 | Set-Content "$pathToSave\users.json"