Powershell Tip #123: Extract the CN (Common Name) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory

Tip: You can extract the CN (Common Name) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory.

For example, someone sent you one report with DN only and you need to extract the CN.

$distinguishedName = 'CN=SMITH John,OU=Managers,OU=EMEA,DC=contoso,DC=com'

# Solution 1
$distinguishedName -replace "(CN=)(.*?),.*",'$2'

# Solution 2
($distinguishedName -split ',*..=')[1]

$distinguishedName = 'CN=SMITH John,OU=Managers,OU=EMEA,DC=contoso,DC=com'

# Solution 1

$distinguishedName -replace "(CN=)(.*?),.*",'$2'

# Solution 2

($distinguishedName -split ',*..=')[1]

extract-the-cn-from-dn-powershell

2 thoughts on “Powershell Tip #123: Extract the CN (Common Name) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory”

2 thoughts on “Powershell Tip #123: Extract the CN (Common Name) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory”

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