how to remove curly braces and get proper output in csv file - powershell

Question

I m trying to get the list of vm from nutanix with name, ipaddress,
The output I am recieving includes ipaddress with curly braces which gives output as System.String[]
I have taken all the values in a array by using a for loop, than have exported the values to csv
Script which i have written is as follows-
foreach ($vmachine in $vm){
$obj = "" | Select "vmName", "ipAddresses", "description", "protectionDomainName", "powerState"
$obj.vmName = $vmachine.vmName
$obj.ipAddresses = $vmachine.ipAddresses
$obj.description = $vmachine.description
$obj.protectionDomainName = $vmachine.protectionDomainName
$obj.powerState = $vmachine.powerState
$outArrayVM += $obj
$obj =$null
}
$outArrayVM | Export-Csv d:\z.csv
Expected output should be some ipaddress like 10.x.x.x, but m getting #{ipAddresses=System.String[]}

Answer 1

This happens because $vmachine.ipAddresses is a string array object. You want a string representation of that with controlled formatting. There are many ways to accomplish this. Here is one that will join multiple IPs (if they exist) using a ;. If there is only one IP, it will appear with no semi-colon:
$obj.ipAddresses = $vmachine.ipAddresses -join ";"
Here's an example of your scenario:
$ip = #("10.1.23.45")
$ip.gettype()
IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType
-------- -------- ---- --------
True True Object[] System.Array
$obj.name = "test"
$obj.ip = $ip
$obj
name ip
---- --
test {10.1.23.45}
$obj | convertto-csv
#TYPE Selected.System.String
"name","ip"
"test","System.Object[]"
Converting the ip property of $obj to string forces PowerShell to interpret the property as a string rather than a collection. Thus, the braces notation ({}) goes away.
$obj.ip = $ip -join ";"
$obj | convertto-csv
#TYPE Selected.System.String
"name","ip"
"test","10.1.23.45"
Here are some other alternatives to set the ip property value as a string:
$obj.ip = -join $ip # No join character here. Works best with only one IP.
$obj.ip = $ip[0] # Accesses first element of array $ip, which will be a string. Only works with one IP.
$obj.ip = [string]$ip # Uses string type accelerator to cast $ip as string. This will join multiple IPs with a space between each IP.
Explanation:
When a ConvertTo-Csv or Export-Csv is run, the input object property is converted using the ToString() method. If the reference type of that object property (System.Array in this case) does not have an override for the ToString() method, then that method will return the fully qualified type name of the property. In this instance, that FQTN is System.Object[]. This is predictable with a little digging.
Testing with [Int32], you would expect the string conversion to provide a string representation of the integer data because it does have an override:
$int = 1
$int.gettype().fullname
System.Int32
($int | Get-Member).where{$_.Name -eq "ToString"}
TypeName: System.Int32
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
ToString Method string ToString(), string ToString(string format), string ToString(System.IFormatProvider provid...
$int.ToString()
1
$int.ToString().gettype().fullname
System.String
Testing with [Array], you would not expect the string conversion to provide a string representation of the array data because it does not have an override:
$arr = [array]1
$arr.gettype().fullname
System.Object[]
([System.Object[]] | Get-Member -Static).where{$_.name -eq "ToString"}
$arr.toString()
System.Object[]
See Export-Csv and Object.ToString Method for supplemental explanations and examples.