Help needed with templating for ConvertFrom-String

PowerShell Help
1

Hello,

I have txt file below and would like to create structured object as output in essence a dictionary or hashtable. I created template but obviously doing something wrong since it does not return structured data.

$template = @'
{Name:{Model_Name:Model Number} {Name_value:FVB 15.5-1200-20 EA03}}
{Shop:{Shop_name:Shop} {Shop_value:Order Number}}
Model Tech
Manufacturing Date 03/19/1997
Serial Number 17-12085
'@

$testtext = @'
Model Number FVB 15.5-1200-20 EA03
Shop Order Number
Model Tech
Manufacturing Date 03/19/1997
Serial Number 17-12085
'@


$testtext | convertfrom-string -TemplateContent $template -OutVariable results
#$results
2

You might need a little more template data and more work data

$template = @’

Model Number FVB {ModelNumber*:15.5-1200-20 EA03}

{ShopName:Shop} Order Number

Model Tech

Manufacturing Date {ManDate:03/19/1997}

Serial Number {Serial:17-12085}


Model Number FVB {ModelNumber*:15.5-1200-21 EA04}

{ShopName:Online} Order Number

Model Tech

Manufacturing Date {ManDate:03/19/1998}

Serial Number {Serial:17-12087}


Model Number FVB {ModelNumber*:15.5-1200-22 EA05}

{ShopName:Local} Order Number

Model Tech

Manufacturing Date {ManDate:03/19/1999}

Serial Number {Serial:17-12086}


'@


$testtext = @’

Model Number FVB 15.5-1200-20 EA03

Shop Order Number

Model Tech

Manufacturing Date 03/19/1997

Serial Number 17-12085


Model Number FVB 15.5-1200-21 EA04

Online Order Number

Model Tech

Manufacturing Date 03/19/1998

Serial Number 17-12087


Model Number FVB 15.5-1200-22 EA05

Local Order Number

Model Tech

Manufacturing Date 03/19/1999

Serial Number 17-12086


Model Number FVB 15.5-1200-20 EA06

Shop Order Number

Model Tech

Manufacturing Date 03/19/2000

Serial Number 17-12083


Model Number FVB 15.5-1200-21 EA07

Online Order Number

Model Tech

Manufacturing Date 03/19/2001

Serial Number 17-12088


Model Number FVB 15.5-1200-22 EA08

Local Order Number

Model Tech

Manufacturing Date 03/19/2002

Serial Number 17-12089


'@


$testtext | convertfrom-string -TemplateContent $template -OutVariable results

$results
results:
ModelNumber       ShopName ManDate    Serial




15.5-1200-20 EA03 Shop     03/19/1997 17-12085

15.5-1200-21 EA04 Online   03/19/1998 17-12087

15.5-1200-22 EA05 Local    03/19/1999 17-12086

15.5-1200-20 EA06 Shop     03/19/2000 17-12083

15.5-1200-21 EA07 Online   03/19/2001 17-12088

15.5-1200-22 EA08 Local    03/19/2002 17-12089

15.5-1200-20 EA03 Shop     03/19/1997 17-12085

15.5-1200-21 EA04 Online   03/19/1998 17-12087

15.5-1200-22 EA05 Local    03/19/1999 17-12086

15.5-1200-20 EA06 Shop     03/19/2000 17-12083

15.5-1200-21 EA07 Online   03/19/2001 17-12088

15.5-1200-22 EA08 Local    03/19/2002 17-12089

3

I’m thoroughly confused what I need to do.
All I have a text below. There is nothing else, that is. 5 lines total. It’s delimited by spaces and I need to manually create template to separate Name of field from field value. Example below. First field name is “Model Number” and value of that field is “FVB 15.5-1200-20 EA03”. Second field name is “Shop” and field value is “Order Number”. I need to create template that based on field name (which will not be changing) I will be able to create hashtable like @{“Model Number”=“FVB 15.5-1200-20 EA03”;
“Shop”=“Order Number” etc}

Model Number FVB 15.5-1200-20 EA03
Shop Order Number
Model Tech
Manufacturing Date 03/19/1997
Serial Number 17-12085
4

Hmmm … now I am confused. You have only one single file you need to extract the information from, not more? So do it by hand??? :wink: You don’t need a script for that.

If it’s more than just that you could use regular expressions to get what you’re looking for. … lite this:

$testtext = Get-Content -Path C:\sample\shop.txt


foreach($line in $testtext){

If($line -match ‘^Model\s+Number\s+(.)$'){

$ModelNumber = $Matches[1]

Remove-Variable Matches -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

}

if($line -match '^Shop\s+(.)$’ ){

$Shop = $Matches[1]

Remove-Variable Matches -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

}

}

[PSCustomObject]@{

ModelNumber = $ModelNumber

Shop = $Shop

}
… outputs this: 
ModelNumber           Shop




FVB 15.5-1200-20 EA03 Order Number

Probably not the most elegant way to do but it does the job. :smiley:

5

I meants I have a lot of text files with the same pattern as $testtext but I load them one by one and hoped to avoid using RegEx and just define template since FieldNames are not changing. Each of the files has only 1 instance of entire object and hence there is no sequences. Will it still be possible to use templating in such cases or RegEx is the only way?

6

I don’t know if that really provides a benefit for you this way. Anyway you could try to use at least 2 or 3 or 4 of these different little text files as your template.
You might watch this video from Tobias. It might help you deciding what approach could be the best for you.
Sophisitcated Techniques of Plain Text Parsing

7

+1 one for having more than one example in the template. Here’s an ipconfig one with two examples. It wouldn’t work with one example.

$template = @'
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : {ip*:172.16.173.105}
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : {mask:255.255.255.128}
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : {gateway:172.16.173.1}
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : {ip*:172.16.173.106}
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : {mask:255.255.255.192}
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : {gateway:172.16.173.1}
'@

ipconfig | ConvertFrom-String -TemplateContent $template

ip             mask            gateway
--             ----            -------
172.16.173.105 255.255.255.128 172.16.173.1