Regex not working in Powershell -

i have powershell file myfile.ps1:

function do-it {     $items = # command returns collection of strings like:              # element 12657 - <description trext>              # element 12656 - <description trext>              # element 12655 - <description trext>              # ...      $pattern = 'element\s(\d*).*';     foreach ($item in $items) {         $res = $item -match $pattern;         $len = $matches.length;         $id = $matches[0];         write-output "$len $id";     } } 

the problem output is:

1 element 12657 - <description trext> 1 element 12656 - <description trext> 1 element 12655 - <description trext> ... 

so no match found. however, if execute cmd, results.

what doing wrong? need escape something? thanks

take , see it's doing manually:

ps u:\> $item = 'element 12657 - <description trext>' ps u:\> $pattern = 'element\s(\d*).*' ps u:\> $matches  name                           value ----                           ----- 1                              12657 0                              element 12657 - <description trext> 

i try $id = $matches[1];.