How to convert powershell array to table - powershell

Question

I found a similar post regarding the problem in the link below.
How to fetch first column from given powershell array?
I am not able to directly convert it to a table as some fields are missing and do operations.
Customer ID Client Name Computer Name Computer Brand Duration Connection Time Lang
123 first last 127.0.0.1 lenovo 10:00 8/18/2019 6:00 PM Eng
1 lastname 127.0.0.2 apple 2:30:00 8/18/2019 1:00 AM Chn
86 user3 127.0.0.1 dell 8/18/2019 2:00 PM
21 user4 127.0.0.4 apple 30:00 8/17/2019 1:00 PM Eng
I want to first filter with a specific user who is connected for more than 30 minutes and then list its id.
Update
The result should be
1
21
because they are connected for 30min and over.

Answer 1

If the data you show is indeed the output of a Fixed-Width file, you need to try and get the widths for each field in order to parse it. A handicap here is that the original header names contain a space character and we need to replace that by an underscore.
For that, you can use the below function:
function ConvertFrom-FixedWith {
[CmdletBinding()]
Param(
[Parameter(Mandatory = $true, Position = 0)]
[string[]]$Content
)
$splitter = '§¤¶' # some unlikely string: Alt-21, [char]164, Alt-20
$needQuotes = '^\s+|[",]|\s+$' # quote the fields if needed
function _FWClean ([string]$field) {
# internal helper function to clean a field value with regards to quoted fields
$field = $_.Trim() -replace '(?<!\\)\\"|""', '§DQUOTE¶'
if ($field -match '^"(.*)"$') { $field = $matches[1] }
if ($field -match $needQuotes) { $field = '"{0}"' -f $field }
return $field -replace '§DQUOTE¶', '""'
}
# try and calculate the field widths using the first header line
# this only works if none of the header names have spaces in them
# and where the headers are separated by at least one space character.
Write-Verbose "Calculating column widths using first row"
$row = ($Content[0] -replace '\s+', ' ').Trim()
$fields = #($row -split ' ' ) # | ForEach-Object { _FWClean $_ })
$ColumnBreaks = for ($i = 1; $i -lt $fields.Length; $i++) {
$Content[0].IndexOf($fields[$i])
}
$ColumnBreaks = $ColumnBreaks | Sort-Object -Descending
Write-Verbose "Splitting fields and generating output"
$Content | ForEach-Object {
if ($null -ne $_ -and $_ -match '\S') {
$line = $_
# make sure lines that are too short get padded on the right
if ($line.Length -le $ColumnBreaks[0]) { $line = $line.PadRight(($ColumnBreaks[0] + 1), ' ') }
# add the splitter string on every column break point
$ColumnBreaks | ForEach-Object {
$line = $line.Insert($_, $splitter)
}
# split on the splitter string, trim, and dedupe possible quotes
# then join using the delimiter character
#($line -split $splitter | ForEach-Object { _FWClean $_ }) -join ','
}
} | ConvertFrom-Csv # the result is an array of PSCustomObjects
}
With that function in place, parsing the text can be done like so:
$text = #"
Customer_ID Client_Name Computer_Name Computer_Brand Duration Connection_Time Lang
123 first last 127.0.0.1 lenovo 10:00 8/18/2019 6:00 PM Eng
1 lastname 127.0.0.2 apple 2:30:00 8/18/2019 1:00 AM Chn
86 user3 127.0.0.1 dell 8/18/2019 2:00 PM
21 user4 127.0.0.4 apple 30:00 8/17/2019 1:00 PM Eng
"# -split '\r?\n'
# replace the single space characters in the header names by underscore
$text[0] = $text[0] -replace '(\w+) (\w+)', '$1_$2'
# the 'ConvertFrom-FixedWith' function takes a string array as input
$table = ConvertFrom-FixedWith -Content $text
#output on screen
$table | Format-Table -AutoSize
# export to CSV file
$table | Export-Csv -Path 'D:\test.csv' -NoTypeInformation
Output (on screen)
Customer ID Client Name Computer Name Computer Brand Duration Connection Time Lang
----------- ----------- ------------- -------------- -------- --------------- ----
123 first last 127.0.0.1 lenovo 10:00 8/18/2019 6:00 PM Eng
1 lastname 127.0.0.2 apple 2:30:00 8/18/2019 1:00 AM Chn
86 user3 127.0.0.1 dell 8/18/2019 2:00 PM
21 user4 127.0.0.4 apple 30:00 8/17/2019 1:00 PM Eng
If your input $text is already a string array storing all the ines as we see them in your question, then leave out the -split '\r?\n'
Having parsed the input to a table of PsCustomObjects, you can get the customers that are connected for 30 minutes or more with the help of another small helper function:
function Get-DurationInMinutes ([string]$Duration) {
$h, $m, $s = (('0:{0}' -f $Duration) -split ':' | Select-Object -Last 3)
return [int]$h * 60 + [int]$m
}
($table | Where-Object { (Get-DurationInMinutes $_.Duration) -ge 30 }).Customer_ID
This will output
1
21
Update
Now that we finally know the data is from a TAB delimited CSV file, you don't need the ConvertFrom-FixedWith function.
Simply import the data using if it comes from a file
$table = Import-Csv -Path 'D:\customers.csv' -Delimiter "`t"
Or, if it comes from the output of another command as string or string array:
$table = $original_output | ConvertFrom-Csv -Delimiter "`t"
Then, use the Get-DurationInMinutes helper function just like above to get the Customer ID's that are connected for more than 30 minutes:
function Get-DurationInMinutes ([string]$Duration) {
$h, $m, $s = (('0:{0}' -f $Duration) -split ':' | Select-Object -Last 3)
return [int]$h * 60 + [int]$m
}
($table | Where-Object { (Get-DurationInMinutes $_.Duration) -ge 30 }).'Customer ID'

Answer 2

Uhh. I'm surprised there's not a canonical way to do this. Based on https://www.reddit.com/r/PowerShell/comments/211ewa/how_to_convert_fixedwidth_to_pipedelimited_or/.
# 0 19 38 59 81 97 120 123
# Customer ID Client Name Computer Name Computer Brand Duration Connection Time Lang
# 123 first last 127.0.0.1 lenovo 10:00 8/18/2019 6:00 PM Eng
# 1 lastname 127.0.0.2 apple 2:30:00 8/18/2019 1:00 AM Chn
# 86 user3 127.0.0.1 dell 8/18/2019 2:00 PM
# 21 user4 127.0.0.4 apple 30:00 8/17/2019 1:00 PM Eng
$cols = 0,19,38,59,81,97,120,123 # fake extra column at the end, assumes all rows are that wide
$firstline = get-content columns.txt | select -first 1
$headers = for ($i = 0; $i -lt $cols.count - 1; $i++) {
$firstline.substring($cols[$i], $cols[$i+1]-$cols[$i]).trim()
}
# string Substring(int startIndex, int length)
$lines = Get-Content columns.txt | select -skip 1
$lines | ForEach {
$hash = [ordered]#{}
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $headers.length; $i++) {
$hash += #{$headers[$i] = $_.substring($cols[$i], $cols[$i+1]-$cols[$i]).trim()}
}
[pscustomobject]$hash
}
Output:
PS /Users/js/foo> ./columns | ft
Customer ID Client Name Computer Name Computer Brand Duration Connection Time Lan
----------- ----------- ------------- -------------- -------- --------------- ---
123 first last 127.0.0.1 lenovo 10:00 8/18/2019 6:00 PM Eng
1 lastname 127.0.0.2 apple 2:30:00 8/18/2019 1:00 AM Chn
86 user3 127.0.0.1 dell 8/18/2019 2:00 PM
21 user4 127.0.0.4 apple 30:00 8/17/2019 1:00 PM Eng

Answer 3

I think you have a couple of requirements here. I'm going to describe one way to do it using a generic 'for loop' and regular expression - something you can play with and tweak to your needs. There are better ways of doing this (Powershell shortcuts), but based on the way you asked I'm going to assume that understanding is your goal, so this code should serve well if you have a background in any programming language. Hope this helps!
# Here is your data formatted in an array. Missing values are just empty fields.
# You could have fewer or more fields, but I've broken up your data into nine fields
# (0-8 when counting elements in an array)
# Customer ID, FName, LName, ComputerHostName, Brand, Duration, ConnectionDate, ConnectionTime, Lang
$myarray = #(
('123', 'firstname', 'lastname', '127.0.0.1', 'lenovo', '10:00', '8/18/2019', '6:00 PM', 'Eng'),
('1', 'lastnam', '', '127.0.0.2', 'apple', '2:30:00', '8/18/2019', '1:00 AM', 'Chn'),
('86', 'user3', '', '127.0.0.1', 'dell', '04:33', '8/18/2019', '2:00 PM', ''),
('21', 'user4', '', '127.0.0.4', 'apple', '30:00', '8/17/2019', '1:00 PM', 'Eng')
)
# This is a generic for loop that prints the ComputerHostName, which is the 4th column.
# The 4th column is column #3 if counting from zero (0,1,2,3)
# I'm using a regular expression to match duration above 30 minutes with the '-match' operator
for ( $i = 0; $i -lt $myarray.Length; $i++ ) {
if ( $myarray[$i][5] -match "[3-5][0-9]:[0-9][0-9]$" ){
"$($myarray[$i][5]) - $($myarray[$i][3])"
}
}
Printed Result:
2:30:00 - 127.0.0.2
30:00 - 127.0.0.4