Sort a nested hash table by value - powershell

Question

I have a hash array as such:
$weeklyStats[$RecipientName][$weekNr][$total]
Which is created in a loop as such:
$weeklyStats = #{}
$weekNr = get-date -UFormat %V
ForEach ($RecipientName in $MailTraffic.keys)
{
$weeklyStats[$RecipientName] = #{}
$weeklyStats[$RecipientName][$weekNr] = #{}
$weeklyStats[$RecipientName][$weekNr]['Total'] = 0
$weeklyStats[$RecipientName][$weekNr]['Sent'] = 0
$weeklyStats[$RecipientName][$weekNr]['Received'] = 0
foreach($item in $MailTraffic[$RecipientName].keys)
{
weeklyStats[$RecipientName][$weekNr]['Total'] =+ 1
if $MailTraffic[$RecipientName]['transaction'] == "Sent"
{
$weeklyStats[$RecipientName][$weekNr]['Sent'] =+ 1
}
else
{
$weeklyStats[$RecipientName][$weekNr]['Received'] =+ 1
}
}
}
I don't know how to 'dump' a variable in Powershell but here is the contents in json:
{
"mike": {
"11": {
"Total": 411,
"Sent": 21,
"Received":390,
}
},
"peter": {
"11": {
"Total": 751,
"Sent": 51,
"Received":700,
}
},
"frank": {
"11": {
"Total": 620,
"Sent": 20,
"Received":600,
}
},
}
I want to print out the keys and values in descending order of the $total.
I can only find examples how to do it if the hash table is only one level deep.
The intended output would be:
Name Total Received Sent
----- ----- ----- -----
peter 751 700 51
frank 620 600 20
mike 411 390 21

Answer 1

Sort by referencing the Keys property of the inner hashtable, then assign to a new [ordered] dictionary:
$sorted = [ordered]#{}
$stats.GetEnumerator() |Sort-Object {
# Sort by first key from each inner hashtable
$_.Value.Keys |Select -First 1
} -Descending |ForEach-Object {
# re-assign to our ordered dictionary
$sorted[$_.Key] = $_.Value
}
$sorted now contains your new sorted dictionary

Answer 2

Most PowerShell cmdlets are intended to handle (stream!) [PSObject] type (which includes a [PScustomerObject] type) lists for input and output.
(To understand the difference see e.g. Difference between PSObject, Hashtable, and PSCustomObject).
Nested hash tables are difficult to maintain and handle in PowerShell (see also: Powershell Multidimensional Arrays) because PowerShell is optimized for streaming which is rather difficult with cascaded objects, therefore I recommend you convert you nested hashtable in a (rather flat) [PScustomerObject] list, something like:
$PSStats =
ForEach ($name in $Stats.Keys) {
ForEach ($weekNr in $_.Keys) {
ForEach ($total in $_.Keys) {
[pscustomobject]#{name = $name; weekNr = $weekNr; total = $total}
}
}
}
Once you have converted it into PSCustomObject list, you can easily sort it and display the results:
$PSStats | Sort-Object Total

Answer 3

I would just create a custom object from your hash tables and then sort on the Title property:
# Creation of $mailtraffic
$mailtraffic = #{'Mike' = #{'Total' = 411; 'Sent' = 21; 'Received' = 390};'Peter' = #{'Total' = 751; 'Sent' = 51; 'Received' = 700};'Frank' = #{'Total' = 620; 'Sent' = 20; 'Received' = 600}}
# Sorting Code
$mailtraffic.GetEnumerator() |
Select #{n='Name';e={$_.Key}},#{n='Total';e={$_.Value.Total}},#{n='Received';e={$_.Value.Received}},#{n='Sent';e={$_.Value.Sent}} |
Sort Total -Descending