Powershell variables in array - powershell

Question

I'm creating a powershell script to add users to a system via API request.
I have defined a variable below, it has a lot of escape characters because it's a json string which goes into the body of the request and otherwise it wasn't possible to define user data as variables in it, but this way it works.
$BODY_USERS = "{`"firstName`":`"${NAME}`", `"lastName`":`"${LASTNAME}`",`"email`":`"${EMAIL}`",`"enabled`":`"true`", `"username`":`"${USERNAME}`",`"credentials`":[{`"type`":`"password`",`"value`":`"Test12345789#`",`"temporary`":true}]}"
The command i execute to add a user is this one:
Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $URI_USERS -Method Post -Headers $HEADERS_USERS -Body $BODY_USERS
I would like to provide user related vars ($NAME, $LASTNAME etc) in a separate file. I did it for one user using dotsource - basically just defined abovementioned variables in a separate .ps1 file and referenced it in the script with . .\vars.ps1 and for one user it works just fine of course.
However if I need to construct a for loop for multiple users, I'm not sure what would be the best approach in this case.
Shall I define in my separate vars.ps1 file something like this:
$var=#($NAME='Jonny'; $LASTNAME='Doe'; $USERNAME='johnnydoe'; $EMAIL='johnny.doe#email.com')
$var#($NAME='Jonny2'; $LASTNAME='Doe2'; $USERNAME='johnnydoe2'; $EMAIL='johnny.doe2#email.com')
and then use something like Get-Content "C:\Users\Desktop\vars.ps1" | ForEach-Object {do blahblah} in my script? But I'm not sure how it will be consumed by my $BODY_USERS variable. So I need to provide an array of variables to a variable, or something like that...
Being novice to powershell, i'm a little bit puzzled here.
Any advice is appreciated!

Answer 1

As noted in comments, you don't need to construct JSON string manually. Create a hashtable for much cleaner syntax and convert to JSON string using ConvertTo-JSON. This also takes care of escaping characters that have special meaning in JSON, like " and \.
$BODY_USERS = #{
firstName = $NAME
lastName = $LASTNAME
email = $EMAIL
enabled = $true
username = $USERNAME
credentials = #(
#{ type = "password"; value = "Test12345789#"; temporary = $true }
)
}
$BODY_USERS_JSON = ConvertTo-JSON $BODY_USERS
Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $URI_USERS -Method Post -Headers $HEADERS_USERS -Body $BODY_USERS_JSON
For multiple users you could store the data in a CSV file, which are quite easy to handle with PowerShell:
Users.csv
name,lastname,username,email
Jonny,Doe,johnnydoe,johnny.doe#email.com
Jonny2,Doe2,johnnydoe2,johnny.doe2#email.com
Now we can process the users.csv like this:
$allUsers = Import-Csv users.csv
$allUsers # List users only for debugging purposes
foreach( $user in $allUsers ) {
$BODY_USERS = #{
firstName = $user.NAME
lastName = $user.LASTNAME
email = $user.EMAIL
enabled = $true
username = $user.USERNAME
credentials = #(
#{ type = "password"; value = "Test12345789#"; temporary = $true }
)
}
$BODY_USERS_JSON = ConvertTo-JSON $BODY_USERS
Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $URI_USERS -Method Post -Headers $HEADERS_USERS -Body $BODY_USERS_JSON
}