Running a For Loop through a Multiline Powershell Variable - powershell

Question

I have section of a script where the user enters a list of server names which then checks to make sure there they exist in AD and then runs a command on each of the ones that do exist. This is what I have:
$machineNames = (read-host "Enter Server Name(s) (space separated)").Trim()
foreach ($machineName in (($machineNames).Split(' '))) {
Try {
Get-ADComputer $machineName | Out-Null
$veriMachineNames += "$machineName`n"
}
Catch {
Write-Host "*****Invalid Machine Name: $machineName" -Foreground Yellow
Write-Host "*****Skipping $machineName`n" -Foreground Yellow
}
}
foreach ($machine in $sepMachineNames) {
Write-Host "Server: $machine `n"
}
When I run this part of the script I get the following output (error intentionally included):
PS C:\> C:\script.ps1
Enter Machine Name(s) (space separated): server1 server2 server3
*****Invalid Machine Name: server3
*****Skipping server3
Server: server1
server2
As you can see it appears that the second foreach is seeing server1 and server2 as being on one line and not two lines. Is there a way to do this with just a variable? I'd rather not output the list to a file.

Answer 1

Instead of concatenating each name onto a big multi-line string manually, just output the individual names 1 by 1 and store them in a variable:
$veriMachines = foreach ($machineName in (($machineNames).Split(' '))) {
Try {
Get-ADComputer $machineName | Out-Null
# no piping to `|Out-Null`, this will "bubble up" to the variable
$machineName
}
Catch {
Write-Host "*****Invalid Machine Name: $machineName" -Foreground Yellow
Write-Host "*****Skipping $machineName`n" -Foreground Yellow
}
}
Now $veriMachines is an array of string (the machine names we just verified) that you can iterate over:
foreach($machine in $veriMachines){
Write-Host "Server: $machine"
}