Create and Use Arrays in PowerShell

This PowerShell blog post will show how to create and use arrays in PowerShell.

Arrays allow us to store data in a very structural way and access them during runtime. An array can contain almost any type of data (int, string, etc.). Arrays allow us to store multiple values inside a single variable.

Create an Array

To create an array with PowerShell, we use the following code:

$myarray = @(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

We can also create an array using the following code:

$fruits = "apple", "banana", "cherry"

Access Array Elements

To access the elements of an array, we use the following code (remember that the array index starts at 0)

$fruits[0] # Returns apple

Modify Array Elements

To modify an array element, we use the following code.

$fruits[1] = "blueberry"

Adding and Removing Elements

To add elements to an array, we use the following code

$fruits += “kiwi”

Iterating over Array

To iterate over each element of an array, we can use a for-each loop

foreach ($fruit in $fruits) {
    Write-Host $fruit
}

To check the length of an array, we use $fruits.length, and to sort an array, we use $sortedFruits = $fruits | Sort-Object

To join all the elements of an array, we use $fruitString = $fruits -join ‘, ‘