Powershell Wrong output - powershell

Question

guys i need help here, i want to return the $Location002 and $Location003 content look what is in output
$Location = "westus2"
$Location002 = "westeurope"
$Location003 = "eastasia"
[int]$VMCount = Read-Host "How many VMs?"
1..$VMCount | ForEach-Object {
$i = $_
# define name for VM, will be used for other resources
if ($i -eq 1) {
$locname = "$Location"
Write-Output $locname
}
else {
$locname = $("Location00" + "$i")
Write-Output $locname
}
}
output :
PS C:\Users\Marouane\Desktop\testpowershell> c:\Users\Marouane\Desktop\testpowershell\test.ps1
How many VMs?: 3
westus2
Location002
Location003
PS C:\Users\Marouane\Desktop\testpowershell>
i need to output westeurope and eastasia

Answer 1

Using a separate variable for each value in a group or list of things is a bit of an anti-pattern, you'll want to put them all in an array together instead:
# Define array of possible locations
# `$Locations[0]` will resolve to `westus2`
# `$Locations[1]` will resolve to `westeurope`, etc.
$Locations = #(
"westus2"
"westeurope"
"eastasia"
)
[int]$VMCount = Read-Host "How many VMs?"
1..$VMCount | ForEach-Object {
# Define the VM name
$name = "VirtualMachine$_"
# Pick next location from the $Locations array
# the % ensures we "wrap around" when we reach the end
$location = $Locations[($_ - 1) % $Locations.Length]
# Output a new object with Name + Chosen Location
[pscustomobject]#{
VMName = $name
Location = $location
}
}
Output for 3 VMs:
How many VMs?: 3
VMName Location
------ --------
VirtualMachine1 westus2
VirtualMachine2 westeurope
VirtualMachine3 eastasia

Answer 2

This is not how I would do it, but the more immediate problem is you're assigning a concatenated string to $location and writing to the output stream. I think what you want to do is reference the value of the earlier variable.
There are some clever syntaxes for that. I struggle to remember them. However below would be a start.
$Location = "westus2"
$Location002 = "westeurope"
$Location003 = "eastasia"
[int]$VMCount = Read-Host "How many VMs?"
1..$VMCount | ForEach-Object {
$i = $_
# define name for VM, will be used for other resources
if ($i -eq 1) {
$name = "$VMName"
$locname = "$Location"
Write-Output $locname
}
else {
$name = "$VMName" + "00" + "$i"
$locname = (Get-Variable ("Location00" + "$i")).Value
Write-Output $locname
}
}
Update With Alternative:
I'm still not sure what the goal is, but based on the original sample it would seem there's a 1 to 1 relationship between the location# and the VM number. That said if you go past the number of VMs you would have to adjust this to pick according to the intended pattern...
$Locations = 'westus2', 'westeurope', 'eastasia'
[int]$VMCount = Read-Host 'How many VMs?'
For( $i = 0; $i -lt $VMCount ; ++$i )
{
$Locations[$i]
}
Further Update:
Respective to Mathias's good answer :
$Locations = 'westus2', 'westeurope', 'eastasia'
[int]$VMCount = Read-Host 'How many VMs?'
For( $i = 0; $i -lt $VMCount ; ++$i )
{
$Locations[ $i % $Locations.Count ]
}
Using the modulus operator in this pattern is very efficient for distributing one list over another. I wrote a small post about My Modulus Obsession with this and some other uses.

Answer 3

You'll need to retrieve the variable's content with Get-Variable. You can also avoid the extra step of making an $i variable and instead use the automatic variable $_
$Location = "westus2"
$Location002 = "westeurope"
$Location003 = "eastasia"
[int]$VMCount = Read-Host "How many VMs?"
1..$VMCount | ForEach-Object {
# define name for VM, will be used for other resources
if ($_ -eq 1) {
$name = "$VMName"
$locname = "$Location"
Write-Output $locname
}
else {
$name = "$VMName" + "00" + "$_"
$locname = "Location00" + "$_"
Write-Output (get-variable $locname).value
}
}