PowerShell Comparison operators

The example asks whether 85 is at least 50. -ge produces True for this scalar comparison. -gt would exclude an exact score of 50, so the boundary is part of the requirement.

= assigns; -eq compares. In a filter, an accidental assignment can change the value being examined or fail on a read-only property. Read the operator before investigating the dataset.

PS> Get-Service | Where-Object { $_.Status = "Running" }

# Assigns "Running" to every service instead of
# comparing — wrong results, and no error to warn you.

PS> Get-Service | Where-Object { $_.Status -eq "Running" }

# Compares each service status — returns only the
# services that are actually running.

Drag the handle — or focus it and use the arrow keys — to compare the mistake with the fix.

PS> $threshold = 5
PS> if ($score = $threshold) {
>>     "Score meets the threshold"
>> }

# The single = assigns 5 to $score and the if-block
# always runs — use -eq to compare.

With a collection on the left, operators such as -eq can return matching elements instead of one Boolean. For a null guard use $null -eq $value. For membership use the appropriate contains or in operator, and remember that their operand order differs.

String comparisons are normally case-insensitive unless you choose a case-sensitive operator such as -ceq. Numeric-looking text from CSV needs conversion before numeric sorting or comparison; validate the conversion instead of assuming every row is a number.