Can anyone tell me why this else statement is not working?...

PowerShell Help
1

Hi,

I have the following code to retrieve tags from various vcenter servers, I am banging my head against the wall as I just cannot see where the structure of my code is going wrong where the else statement is not recognised,

$FinalList = @()
$lc=1
$vCenters = "vcenter1,vcenter2,vcenter3"
$VCs = $vCenters.split(",")
$User = $env:username+"@"+$env:USERDNSDOMAIN
$Cred = get-credential -UserName $User -Message 'Enter Password for vCenter Servers'
Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -InvalidCertificateAction Ignore -Confirm:$false
foreach ($VC in $VCs) {
                        Write-Host 'Connecting to Vcenter Server '$VC -ForegroundColor Green
                        Connect-VIServer -server $VC -Credential $Cred
                        $VMs = get-vm
                            foreach ($VM in $VMs) {
                                                    $Tags = $VM | Get-TagAssignment
                                                    $Cname = $VM | Select-Object -Property @{Name=’Cluster’;Expression={$_.VMHost.Parent}}
                                                    Write-Host $lc' of'($VMs.count)'Getting detail for Virtual Machine'$VM
                                                    if ($Tags -ne $Null){
                                                                        foreach ($Tag in $Tags.tag) {
                                                                        $VMIdent = [PScustomObject] @{
                                                                        "vCenterServer" = $VC
                                                                        "ClusterName" = $Cname.cluster.name
                                                                        "ESXiHost" = $VM.VMHost
                                                                        "VMName" = $VM.name
                                                                        "PowerState" = $VM.PowerState
                                                                        "OperatingSystem" = $VM.ExtensionData.Guest.GuestFullName
                                                                        "Tag Name" = $Tag.Name
                                                                        "Tag Description" = $Tag.Description}
                                                                            } else {
                                                                        $VMIdent = [PScustomObject] @{
                                                                        "vCenter Server" = $VC
                                                                        "ClusterName" = $Cname.cluster.name
                                                                        "ESXi Host" = $VM.VMHost
                                                                        "VMName" = $VM.name
                                                                        "PowerState" = $VM.PowerState
                                                                        "OperatingSystem" = $VM.ExtensionData.Guest.GuestFullName
                                                                        "Tag Name" = "No Tag"
                                                                        "Tag Description" = "No Tag"}
                                                    }
                                                    $VMIdent | Export-Csv VMTagInfo.csv -NoTypeInformation -append
                                                  }
                        $lc++
                        $FinalList += $VMIdent
                        $VMIdent = $null
                        }
$lc=1
write-host 'Disconnecting from vCenter Server '$VC -ForegroundColor Cyan
Disconnect-VIServer $VC -confirm:$false
}
Write-Host 'Complete ' -ForegroundColor Green

Many thanks all!

2

I can’t test it but as an educated guess, Get-TagAssignment does not return NULL if there are no tag assignments.

Try piping $Tags to Get-Member to figure out what’s assigned to $Tags when there are no tag assignments returned.

3

Yeah I must admit, if I pulled the correct objects from Get-TagAssignment then I should ‘hopefully’ not receive any empty values

The reason I used the ‘else’ statement in my code was to evade my export-csv failing due to these

I have become a bit fixated on why the else statement will not work as the structure of the code seems fine to me and it bugs me that I cant get it to work as I am sure that I will need to use ‘else’ again some time in the future, if not in this code then something else

Anyway, many thanks for your reply Matt

4

The issue is you have the else portion in the wrong spot. It currently reads

If($tags -ne $null){
    Foreach($Tag in $tags.tag){
        ...
    } else {
        ...
    }

Code formatting and indentation can go a long way. Also, you open the same log file to export over and over appending each time as well as create a (what should be) identical list. Instead of doing those it would be better to just capture all output and then export once. I’ve restructured your code to show the recommendations.

$lc=1
$vCenters = "vcenter1,vcenter2,vcenter3"
$VCs = $vCenters.split(",")
$User = $env:username+"@"+$env:USERDNSDOMAIN
$Cred = get-credential -UserName $User -Message 'Enter Password for vCenter Servers'
Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -InvalidCertificateAction Ignore -Confirm:$false

$FinalList = foreach ($VC in $VCs) {
    Write-Host 'Connecting to Vcenter Server '$VC -ForegroundColor Green
    $null = Connect-VIServer -server $VC -Credential $Cred

    foreach ($VM in ($VMs = get-vm)) {
        $Tags = $VM | Get-TagAssignment
        $Cname = $VM | Select-Object -Property @{Name=’Cluster’;Expression={$_.VMHost.Parent}}
        Write-Host $lc' of'($VMs.count)'Getting detail for Virtual Machine'$VM

        if ($Tags -ne $Null){
            foreach ($Tag in $Tags.tag) {
                [PScustomObject] @{
                    "vCenterServer" = $VC
                    "ClusterName" = $Cname.cluster.name
                    "ESXiHost" = $VM.VMHost
                    "VMName" = $VM.name
                    "PowerState" = $VM.PowerState
                    "OperatingSystem" = $VM.ExtensionData.Guest.GuestFullName
                    "Tag Name" = $Tag.Name
                    "Tag Description" = $Tag.Description
                }
            }
        } else {
            [PScustomObject] @{
                "vCenter Server" = $VC
                "ClusterName" = $Cname.cluster.name
                "ESXi Host" = $VM.VMHost
                "VMName" = $VM.name
                "PowerState" = $VM.PowerState
                "OperatingSystem" = $VM.ExtensionData.Guest.GuestFullName
                "Tag Name" = "No Tag"
                "Tag Description" = "No Tag"
            }
        }

        $lc++
    }

    $lc=1
    write-host 'Disconnecting from vCenter Server '$VC -ForegroundColor Cyan
    Disconnect-VIServer $VC -confirm:$false
}

$FinalList | Export-Csv VMTagInfo.csv -NoTypeInformation

Write-Host 'Complete ' -ForegroundColor Green