Passing a Array of information to a separate script in powershell - powershell

Question

I have a script that grabs a series of information from SQL. It then parses the information and passes it to a series of arrays. I want to then pass each array to a separate script.
I've seen Start-job should be able to do this but form my testing it didn't seem to work. This is what I have tried. Each Script individually works, and I am currently just using CVS's to pass the information.
Once the information is in the script I need to be able to call specific properties from each object. I did get it to just print the array as a string, but I couldn't call anything specific.
Invoke-Sqlcmd -Query $Q1 -ServerInstance $I -Database $DB | Export-Csv "$Files\Employees.csv"
$emps = Import-Csv "$Files\Employees.csv"
$newaccounts = #()
$deacaccounts = #()
$changedusers = #()
if(Test-Path -Path "$Files\Employees.csv"){
foreach ($emp in $emps) {
if ($emp.emp_num.trim() -ne $emp.EmpNum) {
$newaccounts += $emp
}
if ($emp.emp_num.trim() -eq $emp.EmpNum) {
if ($emp.fname -ne $emp.GivenName -and $emp.lname -ne $emp.SurName) {
$deacaccounts += $emp
$newaccounts += $emp
}
else ($emp.dept -ne $emp.DepartmentNumber -or $emp.job_title -ne $emp.JobTitle) {
$changedusers += $emp
}
}
}
}
Start-job -path "script" -argumentlist (,$deacaccounts)
Start-job -path "script" -argumentlist (,$changedusers)
Start-job -path "script" -argumentlist (,$newaccounts )
EDIT:
The Information passed to the scripts would be multiple lines of employee data. I need to be able to grab that info in the "Sub" scripts and perform actions based on them.
EX:
Deacaccounts =
fname
Lname
empnum
ted
kaz
1234
sam
cart
245

Answer 1

If you really need background jobs - it turns out that you don't - note that Start-Job doesn't have a -Path parameter; you'd have use -ScriptBlock { & "$script" } instead.
To simply invoke the script in the foreground, in sequence, use the following (script representing your .ps1 file path(s)):
& "script" $deacaccounts
& "script" $changedusers
& "script" $newaccounts
Note: &, the call operator, is only needed if the script / executable path is quoted and/or contains variable references (or subexpresions); e.g., a script with path c:\foo\bar.ps1 may be invoked without &; e.g.
c:\foo\bar.ps1 $deacaccounts
Note that your script(s) will receive a single argument each, containing an array of values.
If instead, you wanted to pass the array elements as individual (positional) arguments, you'd have to use splatting, where you use sigil # instead of $ to pass your variable (e.g.,
& "script" #deaccounts).
If you need to enumerate the arrays and pass each object individually as a parameter, use the following:
foreach ($obj in $deaccounts) { & "script" $obj }
foreach ($obj in $changedusers) { & "script" $obj }
foreach ($obj in $newaccounts) { & "script" $obj }
If each object should be splatted positionally based on its property values:
foreach ($obj in $deaccounts) {
$vals = $obj.psobject.Properties.Value
& "script" #vals
}
# ... ditto for $changeduser and $newaccounts
If each object should be splatted by property names, based on both property names and values, you need to convert each object to a hashtable first:
foreach ($obj in $deaccounts) {
$params = #{}
foreach ($prop in $obj.psobject.Properties) {
$params[$prop.Name] = $prop.Value
}
& "script" #params
}
# ... ditto for $changeduser and $newaccounts
As an aside: Incrementally extending arrays in a loop with += is inefficient, because a new array must be created behind the scenes in every iteration, because arrays are of fixed size.
In general, a much more efficient approach is to use a foreach loop as an expression and let PowerShell itself collect the outputs in an array: [array] $outputs = foreach (...) { ... } - see this answer.
In case you need to create arrays manually, e.g to create multiple ones, such as in your case, use an efficiently extensible list type, such as [System.Collections.Generic.List[object]] - see this answer.