PowerShell hash table from multiple Excel columns and use further - powershell

Question

I am reading few columns of an Excel file and storing the values in a hash. My objective it to use this hash further like
Hostname: $computer['server']['hostname'] # Hostname: host1
IP: $computer['server']['ip'] # IP: x.x.x.x
Environment: $computer['server']['Environment'] # Environment: production
Code snippet:
$computers = #{}
$computers['Server'] = #{}
$computers['Server']['Hostname'] = #()
$computers['Server']['Environment'] = #()
$computers['Server']['ip'] = #()
for ($startRow=2; $startRow -le $rowCount; $startRow++) {
$hostname = $workSheet.Cells.Item($startRow,2).Value()
$environment = $workSheet.Cells.Item($startRow,1).Value()
$pip = $workSheet.Cells.Item($startRow,4).Value()
$sip = $workSheet.Cells.Item($startRow,5).Value()
$computers['Server']['Hostname'] += $hostname
$computers['Server']['Environment'] += $environment
$computers['Server']['ip'] += $ip
}
foreach ($computer in $computers) {
foreach ($server in $computer['Server']) {
$myhost = $computer['Server']['Hostname']
$environ = $computers['Server']['Environment']
Write-Host "$myhost : $environ `n"
}
}
Actual output:
host1 host2 host3 host4 : prod dev prod stag
Expected output:
host1: prod
host2: dev
host3: prod
host4: stag
EDIT NOTE: I can always call and display the variables in first for loop itself while reading the Excel files but I also want to store them in a hash table for later usage.

Answer 1

You're getting that result because the data structure you created looks like this (using JSON notation):
{
"Server": {
"Hostname": [ "host1", "host2", "host3", "host4" ],
"Environment": [ "prod", "dev", "prod", "stag" ],
"IP": [ ... ]
}
}
when you actually want something like this:
{
"Server": [
{
"Hostname": "host1",
"Environment": "prod",
"IP": ...
},
{
"Hostname": "host2",
"Environment": "dev",
"IP": ...
},
{
"Hostname": "host3",
"Environment": "prod",
"IP": ...
},
{
"Hostname": "host4",
"Environment": "stag",
"IP": ...
}
]
}
To get the desired result you need to create an array of hashtables and assign that to the key "Server", or just make $computers an array if "Server" is your only key anyway:
$computers = #(for ($startRow=2; $startRow -le $rowCount; $startRow++) {
...
#{
'Hostname' = $hostname
'Environment' = $environment
'IP' = $ip
}
})
You can then enumerate the computers like this:
foreach ($computer in $computers) {
'{0}: {1}' -f $computer['Hostname', 'Environment']
}
Alternatively you could make $computers a hash of hashes
$computers = #{}
for ($startRow=2; $startRow -le $rowCount; $startRow++) {
...
$computers[$hostname] = #{
'Environment' = $environment
'IP' = $ip
}
})
and enumerate the hosts like this:
foreach ($computer in $computers.GetEnumerator()) {
'{0}: {1}' -f $computer.Key, $computer.Value['Environment']
}