Parsing multiple valus in multiple variables - powershell

Question

I am trying to find a way to execute a command in powershell and put each line of the result in a different variable to use them later in my script. For example if i execute the below command:
C:\> Get-VMHost -Name hq-esxi-prod-01a.nsx.gss | Get-VM | select Name
I will get the below:
Name
----
HQ-LinServ-01a
HQ-Win2012-01a
HQ-Web-02a
I want to have a script that will add each line in a different variable in a script (excluding the first which is name).
how can i do that.
Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

You can use Set-Variable in a loop to put each value in a separate variable:
$i = 0
... | Get-Vm | Select-Objet -Expand Name | ForEach-Object {
Set-Variable -Name "vm$i" -Value $_
$i++
}
However, that usually isn't good advice. It's more common to put all names in one (array) variable:
$vmList = ...| Get-Vm | Select-Object -Expand Name
so you can access individual names via $vmList[<index>], or (if you need access by some kind of name) in a hashtable:
$i = 0
$vmList = #{}
... | Get-Vm | Select-Objet -Expand Name | ForEach-Object {
$vmList["vm$i"] = $_
$i++
}
Best practice would depend on the particular scenario you need this for, though.

Answer 2

Thank you for your reply,
I have tried you answer but it seems that i am using PowerCLI for VMware it does not include Select-Object -Expand (not sure i had an exception), However your answer have mad me reach to a suitable answer for this.
I have used the below and it worked fine using foreach and adding the values in an array and then reading them as below:
$p1vmname = Get-VMHost -Name hq-esxi-prod-01a.nsx.gss | Get-VM | select Name
$p1vmlist = #()
foreach ($p1line in $p1vmname)
{
$p1vmlist += $p1line
}
$p1 = 0
do {
$x = $p1+1
Write-Host -BackgroundColor:Black -ForegroundColor:Yellow "vm number $x is "$p1vmlist[$p1]"."
$p1++
}
until ($p1 -eq $p1vmc)
}
However when using this the names was not totally correct as they had some additional characters as below:
vm number 1 is #{Name=HQ-Web-01a}
vm number 2 is #{Name=HQ-LinServ-01a}
vm number 3 is #{Name=HQ-Win2012-01a}
so i used split and trim to get rid of these as below and worked fine.
$p1vmname = Get-VMHost -Name hq-esxi-prod-01a.nsx.gss | Get-VM | select Name
$p1vmlist = #()
foreach ($p1line in $p1vmname)
{
$p1vmlist += $p1line
}
$p1 = 0
do {
$x = $p1+1
$p1vmlist[$p1] = ($p1vmlist[$p1]) -split("=") | Select-Object -Last 1
$p1vmlist[$p1] = $p1vmlist[$p1].trimend("}")
Write-Host -BackgroundColor:Black -ForegroundColor:Yellow "vm number $x is "$p1vmlist[$p1]"."
$p1++
}
until ($p1 -eq $p1vmc)
}
Output:
vm number 1 is HQ-Web-01a .
vm number 2 is HQ-LinServ-01a .
vm number 3 is HQ-Win2012-01a .
Thank you so much for your answer that helped me a lot.
I am really enjoying scripting now.