How to split string to an array of strings without multiple spaces

Question

I have string $x from a TextBox:

I want to split this string to an array of strings without the '*'.

I run: $a = $x.Split("*") but I received double spaces in the "7-zip":

Suggestion 1:
Here they suggested to user -split but when using it I received a string (array of chars), not an array of strings:

Suggestion 2:
In this blog and on this question they suggested to use [System.StringSplitOptions]::RemoveEmptyEntrie + foreach (in the blog) in order to parse the un-wanted spaces.
I tried:

$option = [System.StringSplitOptions]::RemoveEmptyEntries
 $b = $x.Split("*", $option) |foreach {
    $_.Split(" ", $option)
}

But it didn't help:

How can I split a string to an array of strings separated by "*" ?

Answer 1

As you've found out, you can remove the "blank" entry after the last occurrence of * with [StringSplitOptions]::RemoveEmptyEntries.

Now, all you need to do to remove unwanted space around the words, is to call Trim():

$x = @"
ccleaner*
7-zip*
"@

$Words = $x.Split('*',[StringSplitOptions]::RemoveEmptyEntries) | ForEach-Object {
    $_.Trim()
}

PS C:\> $Words[0]
ccleaner
PS C:\> $Words[0]
7-zip
PS C:\>

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You can also use -split (you only need a single \ to escape *) and then filter out empty entries with Where-Object:

"a*b* *c" -split "\*" | Where-Object { $_ -notmatch "^\s+$" }| ForEach-Object { $_.Trim() }

or the other way around (use Where-Object after removing whitespace):

"a*b* *c" -split "\*" | ForEach-Object { $_.Trim() } | Where-Object { $_ }

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You could also use -replace to remove leading and trailing whitespace (basically, the regex version of Trim()):

" a b " -replace "^\s+|\s+$",""
# results in "a b"