Search Excel with PowerShell and return cell address - excel

Question

I have a PowerShell script which searches an Excel file for a server and then outputs details of the server. My script works but it is inefficient (see below).
What I would like to do is use the Excel Range.Find method for speed, but I can't get the right syntax for this to work in PowerShell.
In addition, is it possible to use PowerShell to open the Excel document, find the value being searched for and set the focus? It's the setting focus part that I struggled with.
Thanks in advance
Function SearchExcel{
#Specify the path of the excel file
$FilePath = "c:\temp\Servers.xlsx"
$ServerName="DC1"
#Specify the Sheet name
$SheetName = "VMs","Physical Servers"
$Row = 1
$Column = 1
$Found = $False
# Create an Object Excel.Application using Com interface
$objExcel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application
# Disable the 'visible' property so the document won't open in excel
#$objExcel.Visible = $true
# Open the Excel file and save it in $WorkBook
$WorkBook = $objExcel.Workbooks.Open($FilePath)
# Load the WorkSheet 'BuildSpecs'
$WorkSheet = $WorkBook.sheets.item($SheetName[0])
$range=$WorkSheet.Range("a1:a500")
#Search Hyper-V sheet
while (($WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column).Value() -ne $Null) -and ($Found -eq $False)) {
#^-- looping though the excel list, updating the row. Stop if Cell is Empty or Value is Found
If (($WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column).Value()) -eq $ServerName) {
#^-- Cell value equals $Arg
Write-Host $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column).Value() $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+1).Value(), $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+2).Value(), $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+3).Value(),$WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+4).Value(),"Cluster:" $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+6).Value(), "Backed up by:" $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+7).Value(),$WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+8).Value(),$WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+10).Value(),"vCPUs:" $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+13).Value(),"RAM (GB):" $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+14).Value(),"C: (GB):" $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+15).Value(),"Page (GB):" $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+16).Value(), "Total Disk (GB):" $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+26).value().ToString(),$WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+24).Value()
# write-host "processing"
$Found = $True
}
$Row += 1 #Continue to the next row
}#while
write-host "Not found, searching second sheet"
#If not found, search physical servers
If ($found -eq $False)
{
#Search Physical VMs sheet
$WorkSheet = $WorkBook.sheets.item($SheetName[1])
$range=$WorkSheet.Range("a1:a200")
while (($WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column).Value() -ne $Null) -and ($Found -eq $False)) {
#^-- looping though the excel list, updating the row. Stop if Cell is Empty or Value is Found
If (($WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column).Value()) -eq $ServerName) {
#^-- Cell value equals $Arg
Write-Host $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column).Value() $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+1).Value(), $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+21).Value(), $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+22).Value(),$WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+23).Value(),"Cluster:" $WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column+29).Value()
# write-host "processing"
$Found = $True
}
$Row += 1 #Continue to the next row
}
}#if
#Close Excel
$workbook.close()
$objExcel.Quit()
}#Function
SearchExcel

Answer 1

Never mind, I significantly sped this up by changing the line:
(($WorkSheet.Cells.Item($Row, $Column).Value() -ne $Null) -and ($Found -eq $False))
to
($row -le 500) -and ($Found -eq $False))

Answer 2

You don't need search text cell by cell by PowerShell script. You can make use of the Range.Find method of Excel VBA object.
Below is the code maybe helpful to you.
Function Search-Sheet
{
[CmdletBinding()]
Param
(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$Sheet,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][String]$SearchText
)
$firstResult = $result = $Sheet.UsedRange.Find($SearchText)
$allResults = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
If ($firstResult -eq $null) {
Return $allResults
}
$processedResult = Compose-SearchResult -Result $result
$allResults.Add($processedResult) | Out-Null
$isSearchEnd = $false
Do {
$result = $Sheet.UsedRange.FindNext($result)
$isSearchEnd = Test-SearchResultSame -Result1 $result -Result2 $firstResult
If (-not $isSearchEnd) {
$processedResult = Compose-SearchResult -Result $result
$allResults.Add($processedResult) | Out-Null
}
} While (-not $isSearchEnd)
Return $allResults
}
You can also download the complete sample script here How to search text in Excel by PowerShell script