Remove #{ColumnName from Powershell results - powershell

Question

I'm relatively new to PowerShell scripting and have mainly been cobbling together different scripts and cmdlets from Googling what I'm trying to do. One problem that I'm unable to Google, or search for on StackExchange, because of the special characters is having all my results come out as #{ColumnName=ColumnData}.
Here's an example script I found somewhere for pulling all the members of an AD group.
$Groups = Get-ADGroup -Filter {Name -like "!GroupName"}
$path = $groups
$myCol = #()
ForEach ($Group in $Groups)
{
$Members = #(Get-ADGroupMember "$Group")
ForEach ($Member in $Members){
try{
$user = get-aduser -identity $member -properties displayname
$MyObject = New-Object PSObject -Property #{
Displayname = $user.Displayname
}
$mycol += $MyObject}
catch {}}
}
Write-Host $MyCol | FL
I'm pretty sure there are better ways to get the members of an AD group but that's not the issue at the moment. The problem is all the data comes out like #{Displayname=Lawrence, Kimberly} and this happens with many of the scripts I've thrown together.
Any ideas on how to write scripts properly so I can just get DisplayName = Lawrence, Kimberly?

Answer 1

I agree your code is complex and it does not need to be. A couple of things that are important to mention is why your output looks the way it does.
You are creating an array of PSCustomObjects which function similar to hash-tables. In the end of your processing you have an array of objects with the property DisplayName. Since you are using Write-Host to display the the contents of $myCol it needs to cast it a string array in order to display it. You would see similar output if you just typed [string[]]$myCol. I should hope that you are doing something else in the processing as like the other answers show you have a very complicated way of getting what you are looking for.
Without beating the horse about those other solutions I will suggest some minor changes to yours as it stands. Your title and last sentence contradict what you are looking for since you want to remove the ColumnName in the title and the last sentence you are looking for output like DisplayName = Name.
Changing the last line will address both of these. If you just want the displaynames on there own
$myCols | Select-Object -ExpandProperty DisplayName
Lawrence, Kimberly
and if you actually want the other format you could do this
$myCols | ForEach-Object{
"DisplayName = $($_.DisplayName)"
}
Again, like the other answers, I stress that your code could use simple overhaul. If you needed to understand why it was working the way it way I hope I helped a little.

Answer 2

This actually has nothing to do with Active Directory; You are creating custom objects, then outputting them directly, and by default that is how PowerShell will format the output if you use Write-Host (which is intended to customize output). If you would like to be more specific about what your output should look like, we can help, but here is an example that outputs the results as just a list of strings, just using Write-Output:
$myCol = #()
$MyObject = New-Object PSObject -Property #{ DisplayName = "Lawrence, Kimberly" }
$myCol += $MyObject
$MyObject = New-Object PSObject -Property #{ DisplayName = "Hello, World" }
$myCol += $MyObject
# The default will show at-symbols, etc: Write-Host $MyCol | FL
Write-Output $myCol
The output will be:
DisplayName
-----------
Lawrence, Kimberly
Hello, World

Answer 3

Try this:
Get-ADGroup -Filter "Name -like '!GroupName'" |
Get-ADGroupMember |
Get-ADUser -Properties DisplayName |
Select-Object DisplayName
When I ran your code, I also got the hashes, even without special characters. Your code is way too unnecessarily complex.