PowerShell 7.3 - advanced patterns when Filtering WMI Objects with Where-Object
I'm building a feature where I'm trying to debug I just started working with I'm working with an scenario while trying to filter WMI objects in PowerShell 7.3. Specifically, I'm using `Get-WmiObject` to retrieve a list of processes, and I'm attempting to filter them based on the `ProcessName` property. However, when I run my command, I receive unexpected results, where the filtered list includes processes that shouldn't match my criteria. Here's the command I'm using: ```powershell $processes = Get-WmiObject Win32_Process | Where-Object { $_.ProcessName -eq 'notepad.exe' } ``` To troubleshoot, I added some debug output to see what the `ProcessName` values look like: ```powershell Get-WmiObject Win32_Process | ForEach-Object { Write-Host "Process: $($_.ProcessName)" } ``` This showed me that the `ProcessName` values have trailing spaces, which might be affecting the comparison. To handle this, I modified my filter: ```powershell $processes = Get-WmiObject Win32_Process | Where-Object { $_.ProcessName.Trim() -eq 'notepad.exe' } ``` However, even after this adjustment, I'm still seeing non-matching processes included in the `$processes` variable. The output still contains instances of 'notepad.exe' but also includes other processes that are clearly not what I'm looking for. I've also tried using `-like` instead of `-eq` in an attempt to circumvent the scenario: ```powershell $processes = Get-WmiObject Win32_Process | Where-Object { $_.ProcessName -like 'notepad*' } ``` This change does yield some results that match, but I still find that processes I don't expect are showing up. I'm starting to suspect that there might be some other underlying scenario with the way WMI data is being cast or interpreted in PowerShell 7.3. Is there a reliable way to ensure that I'm filtering these WMI objects accurately? Any insights or tips on best practices for working with WMI and filtering in PowerShell would be greatly appreciated. My development environment is Linux. What would be the recommended way to handle this? I'm open to any suggestions. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.