Confused with Powershell script get-content - arrays

Question

Ask user to enter a name, Search name in the names array person.dat file. If the name is found print a table, If the name is not found, print an error message and ask user for another name.
persons.dat.
George Nelson,56,78000.00
Mary Nathaniel,65,66300.00
Rosy Ferreira,32,39000.00
Guessing on this part.
While ($true){
Write-Host $("1. Search by user name")
Write-Host $("2. List all:)
$input = (Read-Host("Enter an option (0 to quit)"))##user will input value
#if 1 is entered (Read-Host("Enter user name"))
#if 2 is entered Print all#
#if 0 is entered quit.#
try{ ? }
catch {
## If input is invalid, restart loop
Write-host " User does not exist"
continue
}
0{
Write-Host $("Thank you. Bye!")
This bottom part will print all 3 in a table.
$data = Get-Content "persons.dat"
$line = $null;
[String[]] $name = #();
[int16[]] $age = #();
[float[]] $salary = #();
foreach ($line in $data)
{ #Split fields into values
$line = $line -split (",")
$name += $line[0];
$age += $line[1];
$salary += $line[2];
}
Write-Host $("{0,-20} {1,7} {2,11}" -f "Name", "Age", "Salary")
Write-Host $("{0,-20} {1,7} {2,11}" -f "-----------", "---", "-----------")
for
($nextItem=0 ; $nextItem -lt $name.length; $nextItem++)
{
$val1n = $name[$nextItem];
$val2n = $age[$nextItem]
$val3n = $salary[$nextItem]
Write-Host $("{0,-20} {1,7} {2,11:n2}" -f $val1n,
$val2n, $val3n)
}

Answer 1

Here is one way you could do it, hopefully the inline comments help you understand the logic. Since the persons.dat file you're showing us is comma-delimited, we can convert it to an object using ConvertFrom-Csv, by doing this, you won't have a need to construct the output to screen like you are doing with those Write-Host statements.
# Convert the file into an object
$persons = Get-Content persons.dat -Raw | ConvertFrom-Csv -Header "Name", "Age", "Salary"
function ShowMenu {
# simple function to clear screen and show menu when called
Clear-Host
'1. Search by user name'
'2. List all'
}
:outer while($true) {
# clear screen and show menu
ShowMenu
while($true) {
# ask user input
$choice = Read-Host 'Enter an option (0 to quit)'
# if input is 0, break the outer loop
if(0 -eq $choice) {
'Goodbye'
break outer
}
# if input is not 1 or 2
if($choice -notmatch '^(1|2)$') {
'Invalid input!'
$null = $host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey()
# restart the inner loop
continue
}
# if we are here user input was correct
break
}
$show = switch($choice) {
1 {
# if choice was 1, ask user for a user name
$user = Read-Host "Enter user name"
# if user name exists in the `$persons` object
if($match = $persons.where{ $_.Name -eq $user }) {
# output this to `$show`
$match
# and exit this switch
continue
}
# if user name was not found
"$user was not found in list."
}
2 {
# if input was 2, output `$persons` to `$show`
$persons
}
}
# show the object to the host
$show | Out-Host
# and wait for the user to press any key
$null = $host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey()
}