Azure Resource Graph IV – „Where“ and string operators

Querying data needs always filtering capabilities. ARG, has a powerful query language that allows complex queries with just a few characters of typework. Knowing how to filter data is importtant, so that you can use the power of the ARG engine before you retrieve the data to your session (PowerShell in that case), especially with large datasets. This article explains the filter options provided by ARG.

The ‚where‘ statement has nine main operators to work with.

List of main ‚where‘ operators:

= – equals
has – whole term
hasprefix – whole term has prefix
hassuffix – whole term has suffix
contains – string contains
startswith – string starts with
endswith – string ends with
matches regex
in – string array contains string element

When we combine the operators with teh case sensitive and negation options, we can see a lot of options to filter data. See below.

string operator	case insensitive	negated	case insensitive and negated
=	=~	!=	!~
has	has_cs	!has	!has_cs
hasprefix	hasprefix_cs	!hasprefix	!hasprefix_cs
hassuffix	hassuffix_cs	!hassuffix	!hassuffix_cs
contains	contains_cs	!contains	!contains_cs
startswith	startswith_cs	!startswith	!startswith_cs
endswith	endswith_cs	!endswith	!endswith_cs
matchregex	—	—	—
in	—	!in	—

This leads to 31(!) possibilities, now lets start with a query of all resource tags in the database

$q = "project name,tags"
Search-AzGraph -Query $q

1 2	$q = "project name,tags" Search-AzGraph -Query $q

The output is a list of objects this (name,tags):

SampleWinBox @{CostCenter=ABC; Department=Cleaning; PCC-DoNotSync=False; SetbyMG=TRUE}

1	SampleWinBox @{CostCenter=ABC; Department=Cleaning; PCC-DoNotSync=False; SetbyMG=TRUE}

Now lets play around with the „where“ statement.

# All the below queries are stored in the $q variable, just start them with:
Search-AzGraph -Query $q
#------------------------------------------------#

# Filter where the resource Tag value contains 'ABC' (not case sensitive)
$q = "project name,tags|where tags contains 'abc'"

# Filter where the resource Tag value contains 'aBc' (case sensitive)
$q = "project name,tags|where tags contains_cs 'aBc'"

# Filter not containing 'CostCenter' case sensitive - so all resources where this tag is not set.
$q = "project name,tags|where tags !contains 'CostCenter'"

# Show all hidden resource tags (Set by Azure automatically, not visible to users in the Portal)
$q = "project name,tags|where tags contains 'hidden'"

# --- Examples with filtering the name ---

# Filter all resources starting with 'Sample'
$q = "project name,tags|where name startswith 'Sample'"

# Combine name and type filter to get all VM´s containing 'Sample' in the name
$q = "project name,type|where name contains 'Sample' and type contains 'virtualmachine'"

# All the below queries are stored in the $q variable, just start them with:

Search-AzGraph -Query $q

#------------------------------------------------#

# Filter where the resource Tag value contains 'ABC' (not case sensitive)

$q = "project name,tags|where tags contains 'abc'"

# Filter where the resource Tag value contains 'aBc' (case sensitive)

$q = "project name,tags|where tags contains_cs 'aBc'"

# Filter not containing 'CostCenter' case sensitive - so all resources where this tag is not set.

$q = "project name,tags|where tags !contains 'CostCenter'"

# Show all hidden resource tags (Set by Azure automatically, not visible to users in the Portal)

$q = "project name,tags|where tags contains 'hidden'"

# --- Examples with filtering the name ---

# Filter all resources starting with 'Sample'

$q = "project name,tags|where name startswith 'Sample'"

# Combine name and type filter to get all VM´s containing 'Sample' in the name

$q = "project name,type|where name contains 'Sample' and type contains 'virtualmachine'"

I hope you got enough examples and info sto start on your own!

Happy experimenting !