Creating dynamic variable array names and then adding object to them - powershell

What I'm trying to do is create array variable names dynamically, and then with a loop, add the object to its relevant array based on the hash table value being equal to the counter variable.
$hshSite = #{} # Values like this CO,1 NE,2 IA,3
$counter = $hshSite.count
For($i = $counter; $i -gt 0; $i--) {
New-Variable -Name "arr$i" -Value #()
}
If $counter = 3, I would create arrays $arr1, $arr2, $arr3
$csv = Import-CSV....
ForEach ($x in $csv) {
#if $hshSite.Name = $x.location (ie CO), look up hash value (1),
and add the object to $arr1. If $hshSite.Name = NE, add to $arr2
I tried creating the dynamic arrays with New-Variable, but having issues trying to add to those arrays. Is it possible to concatenate 2 variables names into a single variable name? So taking $arr + $i to form $arr1 and $arr2 and $arr3, and then I can essentially just do $arr0 += $_
The end goal is to group things based on CO, NE, IA for further sorting/grouping/processing. And I'm open to other ideas of getting this accomplished. Thanks for your help!

Just make your hash table values the arrays, and accumulate the values to them directly:
$Sites = 'CO','NE','IA'
$hshSite = #{}
Foreach ($Site in $Sites){$hshSite[$Site] = #()}
ForEach ($x in $csv)
{
$hshSite[$x.location] += <whatever it is your adding>
}
If there's a lot of entries in the csv, you might consider creating those values as arraylists instead of arrays.
$Sites = 'CO','NE','IA'
$hshSite = #{}
Foreach ($Site in $Sites){ $hshSite[$Site] = New-Object Collections.Arraylist }
ForEach ($x in $csv)
{
$hshSite[$x.location].add('<whatever it is your adding>') > $nul
}

You could quite easily do add items to a dynamically named array variable using the Get-Variable cmdlet. Similar to the following:
$MyArrayVariable123 = #()
$VariableNamePrefix = "MyArrayVariable"
$VariableNameNumber = "123"
$DynamicallyRetrievedVariable = Get-Variable -Name ($VariableNamePrefix + $VariableNameNumber)
$DynamicallyRetrievedVariable.Value += "added item"
After running the above code the $MyArrayVariable123 variable would be an array holding the single string added item.

Related

for loop through 5 textboxes

I have created a GUI with 5 Textboxes. I call them $textboxHost1 - 5.
Now I have an array in which I'm gonna save up to 5 values and then write each value according to the order into the textboxes. The first value in the array should be written into the first $textboxHost1 box.
To do that, I would like to make a for loop and have written this code
#$hostnameneingabe: Array, in which the values are saved.
$hostnameneingabeCount = $hostnameneingabe.Count
for($i = 0; $i -le $hostnameneingabeCount; $i++) {
#code here
}
Now, I'm looking for a way to go down the order, so that the first $textboxHost1 comes firstly and so on.
To be accurate, the variable $textboxHost should be incrementally increased in the loop and the values at the position $i in the array should be written into that textbox.
sth like
for($i = 0; $i -le $hostnameneingabeCount; $i++) {
$textboxHost$i =
}
I suppose you would be liking something like this?
$textboxHosts = Get-Variable | ? {$_.Name -match "textBoxHost[0-9]" -and $_.Value -ne $null} | sort Name
After this you can process that var with eg. a foreach:
foreach ($textboxHost in $textboxHosts) {<# Do some stuff #>}
You have to use an array, because otherwise you can't loop through them:
$textboxHost = #(0..4)
#Textbox 0
$textboxHost[0] = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
$textboxHost[0].Text = "test"
#Textbox 1
$textboxHost[1] = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
$textboxHost[1].Text = "test"
foreach ($textbox in $textboxHost){
#Do whatever you want with the textbox
$textbox =
}

PS Object unescape character

I have small error when running my code. I assign a string to custom object but it's parsing the string by itself and throwing an error.
Code:
foreach ($item in $hrdblistofobjects) {
[string]$content = Get-Content -Path $item
[string]$content = $content.Replace("[", "").Replace("]", "")
#here is line 43 which is shown as error as well
foreach ($object in $listofitemsdb) {
$result = $content -match $object
$OurObject = [PSCustomObject]#{
ObjectName = $null
TestObjectName = $null
Result = $null
}
$OurObject.ObjectName = $item
$OurObject.TestObjectName = $object #here is line 52 which is other part of error
$OurObject.Result = $result
$Resultsdb += $OurObject
}
}
This code loads an item and checks if an object exists within an item. Basically if string part exists within a string part and then saves result to a variable. I am using this code for other objects and items but they don't have that \p part which I am assuming is the issue. I can't put $object into single quotes for obvious reasons (this was suggested on internet but in my case it's not possible). So is there any other option how to unescape \p? I tried $object.Replace("\PMS","\\PMS") but that did not work either (this was suggested somewhere too).
EDIT:
$Resultsdb = #(foreach ($item in $hrdblistofobjects) {
[string]$content = Get-Content -Path $item
[string]$content = $content.Replace("[", "").Replace("]", "")
foreach ($object in $listofitemsdb) {
[PSCustomObject]#{
ObjectName = $item
TestObjectName = $object
Result = $content -match $object
}
}
}
)
$Resultsdb is not defined as an array, hence you get that error when you try to add one object to another object when that doesn't implement the addition operator.
You shouldn't be appending to an array in a loop anyway. That will perform poorly, because with each iteration it creates a new array with the size increased by one, copies all elements from the existing array, puts the new item in the new free slot, and then replaces the original array with the new one.
A better approach is to just output your objects in the loop and collect the loop output in a variable:
$Resultsdb = foreach ($item in $hrdblistofobjects) {
...
foreach ($object in $listofitemsdb) {
[PSCustomObject]#{
ObjectName = $item
TestObjectName = $object
Result = $content -match $object
}
}
}
Run the loop in an array subexpression if you need to ensure that the result is an array, otherwise it will be empty or a single object when the loop returns less than two results.
$Resultsdb = #(foreach ($item in $hrdblistofobjects) {
...
})
Note that you need to suppress other output on the default output stream in the loop, so that it doesn't pollute your result.
I changed the match part to this and it's working fine $result = $content -match $object.Replace("\PMS","\\PMS").
Sorry for errors in posting. I will amend that.

Powershell array of arrays [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Powershell create array of arrays
(3 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
This is building $ret into a long 1 dimensional array rather than an array of arrays. I need it to be an array that is populated with $subret objects. Thanks.
$ret = #()
foreach ($item in $items){
$subret = #()
$subRet = $item.Name , $item.Value
$ret += $subret
}
there might be other ways but arraylist normally works for me, in this case I would do:
$ret = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
and then
$ret.add($subret)
The suspected preexisting duplicate question is indeed a duplicate:
Given that + with an array as the LHS concatenates arrays, you must nest the RHS with the unary form of , (the array-construction operator) if it is an array that should be added as a single element:
# Sample input
$items = [pscustomobject] #{ Name = 'n1'; Value = 'v1'},
[pscustomobject] #{ Name = 'n2'; Value = 'v2'}
$ret = #() # create an empty *array*
foreach ($item in $items) {
$subret = $item.Name, $item.Value # use of "," implicitly creates an array
$ret += , $subret # unary "," creates a 1-item array
}
# Show result
$ret.Count; '---'; $ret[0]; '---'; $ret[1]
This yields:
2
---
n1
v1
---
n2
v2
The reason the use of [System.Collections.ArrayList] with its .Add() method worked too - a method that is generally preferable when building large arrays - is that .Add() only accepts a single object as the item to add, irrespective of whether that object is a scalar or an array:
# Sample input
$items = [pscustomobject] #{ Name = 'n1'; Value = 'v1'},
[pscustomobject] #{ Name = 'n2'; Value = 'v2'}
$ret = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList # create an *array list*
foreach ($item in $items) {
$subret = $item.Name, $item.Value
# .Add() appends whatever object you pass it - even an array - as a *single* element.
# Note the need for $null = to suppress output of .Add()'s return value.
$null = $ret.Add($subret)
}
# Produce sample output
$ret.Count; '---'; $ret[0]; '---'; $ret[1]
The output is the same as above.
Edit
It is more convoluted to create an array of tuples than fill an array with PsObjects containing Name Value as the two properties.
Select the properties you want from $item then add them to the array
$item = $item | select Name, Value
$arr = #()
$arr += $item
You can reference the values in this array by doing this
foreach($obj in $arr)
{
$name = $obj.Name
$value = $obj.Value
# Do actions with the values
}

how to use a FOR loop variable to help define another variable

I am new to powershell scripts and not sure how to achieve the below:
$finalArray = #()
$tempArray0 = 'A'
$tempArray1 = 'B'
$tempArray2 = 'C'
FOR (i=0; i -eq 5; i++) {$finalArray += $tempArray[i]}
$finalArray
Output Should be:
A
B
C
If the variable name is itself variable, you'll have to use the Get-Variable cmdlet to retrieve its value:
$finalArray = #()
$tempArray0 = 'A'
$tempArray1 = 'B'
$tempArray2 = 'C'
for($i=0; $i -le 2; $i++) {
$finalArray += (Get-Variable "temparray$i" -ValueOnly)
}
$finalArray
If you want to create variables with variable names, use the New-Variable cmdlet:
$Values = 'A','B','C'
for($i = 0; $i -lt $Values.Count; $i++){
New-Variable -Name "tempvalue$i" -Value $Values[$i]
}
which would result in:
PS C:\> $tempvalue1
B
Although the above will solve the example you've presented, I can think of very few cases where you wouldn't be better of using a [hashtable] instead of variable variable names - they're usually an over-complication, and you'll end up with unnecessary code anyways because you need to calculate the variable names at least twice (during creation and again when reading the value).
From the comments, it sounds like you're trying to generate input for a password generator. This can be simplified grossly, without resorting to variable variable names:
# Create a hashtable and generate the characters
$CharArrays = #{
Letters = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ".ToCharArray()
Numbers = 0..9
}
# Generate some letters for the password
$PasswordChars = $CharArrays['Letters'] |Get-Random -Count 10
# Generate a few digits
$PasswordChars += $CharArrays['Numbers'] |Get-Random -Count 4
# Shuffle them around a bit
$PasswordChars = $PasswordChars |Sort-Object {Get-Random}
# Create your password
$Password = $PasswordChars -join ''

Getting length of HashTable in powershell

I'm new to powershell and trying to get the length of a HashTable (to use in a for loop), but I can't seem to get the length of the HashTable to output anything.
$user = #{}
$user[0] = #{}
$user[0]["name"] = "bswinnerton"
$user[0]["car"] = "honda"
$user[1] = #{}
$user[1]["name"] = "jschmoe"
$user[1]["car"] = "mazda"
write-output $user.length #nothing outputs here
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $user.length; $i++)
{
#write-output $user[0]["name"]
}
#{} declares an HashTable whereas #() declares an Array
You can use
$user.count
to find the length of you HashTable.
If you do:
$user | get-member
you can see all the methods and properties of an object.
$user.gettype()
return the type of the object you have.
$user is a hash table, so you should user$user.count instead.
That's not an array but a hashtable. Use .count instead:
write-output $user.count