PowerShell Requires Chilkat v11.7.0+

Search a PDF with a Regular Expression

See more PDF Text Extraction Examples

Demonstrates searching a PDF with a regular expression (regex: true), limiting the number of results (maxResults), and matching whole words only (wholeWord). PowerShell

Add-Type -Path "C:\chilkat\ChilkatDotNet47-x64\ChilkatDotNet47.dll"

$success = $false

#  This example requires the Chilkat API to have been previously unlocked.
#  See Global Unlock Sample for sample code.

#  The PDF used in this example is available at order_records.pdf

$pdf = New-Object Chilkat.Pdf
$success = $pdf.LoadFile("qa_data/pdf/order_records.pdf")
if ($success -eq $false) {
    $($pdf.LastErrorText)
    exit
}

$json = New-Object Chilkat.JsonObject
$jsonOut = New-Object Chilkat.JsonObject

#  Find every order number.  With regex set to true, the query is a regular expression.
$json.UpdateString("query","ORD-[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{4}")
$json.UpdateBool("regex",$true)
#  We only want the matched text, so no context is needed.
$json.UpdateInt("context",0)

$success = $pdf.ExtractText("search",$json,$jsonOut)
if ($success -eq $false) {
    $($pdf.LastErrorText)
    exit
}

$("Order numbers found: " + $jsonOut.IntOf("count"))
$i = 0
$count_i = $jsonOut.SizeOfArray("matches")
while ($i -lt $count_i) {
    $jsonOut.I = $i
    $($jsonOut.StringOf("matches[i].text"))
    $i = $i + 1
}

#  Find the e-mail addresses, but stop after the first three.
$json.UpdateString("query","[a-z0-9._]+@[a-z]+[.][a-z]+")
$json.UpdateInt("maxResults",3)
$success = $pdf.ExtractText("search",$json,$jsonOut)
if ($success -eq $false) {
    $($pdf.LastErrorText)
    exit
}

$("First three e-mail addresses:")
$i = 0
$count_i = $jsonOut.SizeOfArray("matches")
while ($i -lt $count_i) {
    $jsonOut.I = $i
    $($jsonOut.StringOf("matches[i].text"))
    $i = $i + 1
}

#  wholeWord: true matches only whole words.  The word "cat" appears once in the PDF,
#  but it is also inside "catalog" and "category".
$json.Delete("maxResults")
$json.UpdateBool("regex",$false)
$json.UpdateString("query","cat")
$success = $pdf.ExtractText("search",$json,$jsonOut)
if ($success -eq $false) {
    $($pdf.LastErrorText)
    exit
}

$("Occurrences of cat (any): " + $jsonOut.IntOf("count"))

$json.UpdateBool("wholeWord",$true)
$success = $pdf.ExtractText("search",$json,$jsonOut)
if ($success -eq $false) {
    $($pdf.LastErrorText)
    exit
}

$("Occurrences of cat (whole word): " + $jsonOut.IntOf("count"))

#  Sample output:

#  Order numbers found: 9
#  ORD-2026-0301
#  ORD-2026-0302
#  ORD-2026-0303
#  ORD-2026-0304
#  ORD-2026-0305
#  ORD-2026-0306
#  ORD-2026-0307
#  ORD-2026-0308
#  ORD-2026-0307
#  First three e-mail addresses:
#  alice.moore@example.com
#  bkumar@example.org
#  carla@example.net
#  Occurrences of cat (any): 3
#  Occurrences of cat (whole word): 1