PowerTip: Find the Largest Number in a PowerShell Array

Doctor Scripto

Summary: Easily find the largest number in a Windows PowerShell array.

Hey, Scripting Guy! Question How can I use Windows PowerShell to easily find the largest number in an array of numbers?

Hey, Scripting Guy! Answer Pipe the array to the Measure-Object cmdlet, and use the –Maximum switch:

PS C:\> $a = [array]1,2,5,6,3,2,9,1

PS C:\> $a | measure -Maximum

 

Count    : 8

Average  :

Sum      :

Maximum  : 9

Minimum  :

Property :

3 comments

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  • Mac MacAnanny 0

    One of those moments where i’m writing if this is greater than that, is greater than that is greater than that, oh maybe i should sort and [-1] it or a switch or…. then it dawned on me there has to be a way to find a maximum value, with a one liner… thanks!

  • John Curtiss 0

    what if someday i come across an array that has multiple columns, and only one of the columns has the number i want the maximum of, and i want to return the whole row that contains the highest number?

    • KÃ¥re Vergmann 0

      Hallo John.

      1) To get the highest of all numbers in your multidimentional array, you could do:
      ($a -split ‘ ‘ | measure -Maximum).Maximum
      2) If it finds f.x 61 as the biggest nummer, your get your row in your array which contains 61 with:
      $a | ? {$_.Contains(61)}

      Put all together, it looks like:
      $a | ? {$_.Contains([int](($a -split ‘ ‘ | measure -Maximum).Maximum))}

      You need to cast your maximum number to fx. integer (=[int])

      Hope it makes sense.

      PS! I’ve testet with
      $a = @(
      (1,2,5,6,3,2,9,1),
      (12,22,5,61,32,21,9,13)
      )

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