Powershell While loop Issue - powershell

Question

Why does my loop only happen once? I want to enter 5 users and add it to a hashtable, but the code runs once then stops. How Do I fix it?
$userID=""
$firstname=""
$lastname="
$personCount = 1
$personHash = #{}
while ($personCount -le 5){
$personCount++
While([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($userID)){
$userID = Read-Host "Enter ID"
}
While([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($firstname)){
$firstname = Read-Host "Enter First Name"
}
While([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($lastname)){
$lastname = Read-Host "Enter Last Name"
}
$user = New-Object PSCustomObject -Property #{
ID = $userID
FirstName = $firstname
LastName = $lastname
}
$personHash.Add($user.ID,$user)
}
}
Output:
Enter ID: 1001
Enter First Name: Charles
Enter Last Name: Whitfield
Name Value
---- -----
1001 #{ID=1001; FirstName=Charles; LastName=Whitfield}
1001 #{ID=1001; FirstName=Charles; LastName=Whitfield}
1001 #{ID=1001; FirstName=Charles; LastName=Whitfield}
1001 #{ID=1001; FirstName=Charles; LastName=Whitfield}

Answer 1

Your loop runs 5 times.
The problem is that once the variables are populated in the first loop, they fail the While condition in the all the subsequent loops. It runs one time, doing a read-host and setting the variables. Then it runs 4 more times, but doesn't find anything to do.
Your updated code is closer. You save the data, but didn't clear the variables for the next loop.
$userID=""
$firstname=""
$lastname=""
$personCount = 1
$personHash = #{}
while ($personCount -le 5){
$personCount++
While([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($userID)){
$userID = Read-Host "Enter ID"
}
While([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($firstname)){
$firstname = Read-Host "Enter First Name"
}
While([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($lastname)){
$lastname = Read-Host "Enter Last Name"
}
$user = New-Object PSCustomObject -Property #{
ID = $userID
FirstName = $firstname
LastName = $lastname}
$personHash.Add($user.ID,$user)
$UserID,$firstname,$lastname = ""
}

Answer 2

Couple of issues here, the while loops need clear variables like mjolinor said. Once that is done, I suggest saving that data in an array, so the data of each user is not lost by the next iteration:
$users = #()
$personCount = 1
while ($personCount -le 5){
$userID=""
$firstname=""
$lastname=""
$personCount++
While([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($userID)){
$userID = Read-Host "Enter ID"
}
While([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($firstname)){
$firstname = Read-Host "Enter First Name"
}
While([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($lastname)){
$lastname = Read-Host "Enter Last Name"
}
$users += New-Object -TypeName PSCustomObject -Property #{
userID = $userID;
firstName = $firstname;
lastName = $lastname
}
}
Once the array $users has all the data, you can output all the values at once with $users or specific users with $users[0],$users[1], etc.

Answer 3

It's clearly not possible that the code you posted would create the output you posted. Even if I discount the two syntax errors you'd still be getting 4 key conflict exceptions, because you're trying to add the same key to the same hashtable 5 times (a key in a hashtable must be unique).
If you want to create 5 user objects in a hashtable and make sure that the user enters a value for all 3 properties you could do something like this if you want a duplicate ID to throw an error:
$personHash = #{}
1..5 | % {
do {
$userID = Read-Host "Enter ID"
$firstname = Read-Host "Enter First Name"
$lastname = Read-Host "Enter Last Name"
} until ( $userID -and $firstname -and $lastname )
$user = New-Object -Type PSCustomObject -Property #{
'ID' = $userID
'FirstName' = $firstname
'LastName' = $lastname
}
$personHash.Add($userID, $user)
}
or like this if you want a duplicate ID to update the current values:
$personHash = #{}
1..5 | % {
do {
$userID = Read-Host "Enter ID"
$firstname = Read-Host "Enter First Name"
$lastname = Read-Host "Enter Last Name"
} until ( $userID -and $firstname -and $lastname )
$user = New-Object -Type PSCustomObject -Property #{
'ID' = $userID
'FirstName' = $firstname
'LastName' = $lastname
}
$personHash[$userID] = $user
}