Powershell if String.StartsWith() multiple strings

Question

I am trying to run some code if a string does not start with a certain character, however I can not get it to work with multiple characters.

This is the code that works fine.

if (-Not $recdata.StartsWith("1"))
{
    //mycode.
}

What I want is multiple checks like this:

if (-Not $recdata.StartsWith("1") -Or -Not $recdata.StartsWith("2"))
{
    //mycode.
}

But this does not work: it breaks the whole function even though PowerShell does not throw any errors.

Answer 1

MundoPeter has pointed out the logic flaw in your approach - -or should be -and - and Santiago Squarzon has offered an alternative based on the regex-based -match operator.

Let me offer the following PowerShell-idiomatic solutions, taking advantage of the fact that PowerShell's operators offer negated variants simply by prepending not to their names:

$recdata[0] -notin '1', '2' # check 1st char of LHS against RHS array

$recdata -notlike '[12]*'   # check LHS against wildcard expression

$recdata -notmatch '^[12]'  # check LHS against regex

See also:

• -in, the is-the-LHS-contained-in-the-RHS-collection operator

• -like, the wildcard matching operator

• -match, the regular-expression matching operator