Objects returned as properties with Export-CSV

PowerShell Help
1

I’ve got the following code to export local account info. When I send my $account collection to export-csv my Username and LastLogin properties get populated with Object information and not the properties I want. Outputting $account to the screen shows the info but it’s bracketed, and I believe that means it’s a collection. When I pipe $user.name to GM it tells me it’s a system.string object but export csv says it’s a collection. (System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection) I’m missing something here and I’m needing some direction/hints on where to look.

$ADSI = [ADSI]"WinNT://$env:COMPUTERNAME"
$Users = $ADSI.Children | where {$_.SchemaClassName -eq 'user'}
$BadUser = "User has never logged in."

$Accounts = @()
ForEach ($User in $Users) {

    If ($User.LastLogin) {
        $Login = $User.Lastlogin
        } Else {$Login = $BadUser}

    $Properties = [ordered]@{
                UserName=$User.name
                LastLogin=$Login
                'PWD Age'="{0:N0}" -f ($User.PasswordAge.value/86400)}

    $Accounts += New-Object -TypeName psobject -Property $Properties
}

UserName LastLogin PWD Age
{User1} {12/7/2015 7:53:24 AM} 3
{User2} {12/3/2015 11:32:47 AM} 49
{User3} User has never logged in. 0
{User4} {12/7/2015 7:46:01 AM} 39
{User5} User has never logged in. 0

2

You already have them in a custom object called $properties

Tested This does Work

change to this

$ADSI = [ADSI]"WinNT://$env:COMPUTERNAME"
$Users = $ADSI.Children | where {$_.SchemaClassName -eq 'user'}
$BadUser = "User has never logged in."

$Accounts = @()
ForEach ($User in $Users) {

    If ($User.LastLogin) {
        $Login = $User.Lastlogin
        } Else {$Login = $BadUser}


$Accounts += New-Object PSObject -Property([ordered]@{UserName=$($User.name);LastLogin=$($Login);'PWD Age' = $("{0:N0}" -f ($User.PasswordAge.value/86400))})
}

$Accounts | Export-Csv "c:\temp\accounts.csv" -NoTypeInformation

Output

UserName                     LastLogin                        PWD Age   
--------                     ---------                        -------   
camadmin                     8/4/2014 11:36:56 AM             0         
camguest                                                      0
3

Are you seeing System.Object in your Csv file? If so, start at Boe Prox’s post about this here: Avoiding System.Object[] (or Similar Output) when using Export-Csv | Learn Powershell | Achieve More. I’ve reference this post a few times, and have incorporated it in at least two scripts/functions.

4

Mark Hammonds,
BINGO! We have a winner, that fixed it. Now I need to know WHY it fixed it so I have a better understanding of what just happened. Any guidance?

THANK YOU!

5

Well I put the three fields into one custom object and expanded the property by enclosing it with $() like so $($User.name) that means insert the value not the object. I think :smiley: you will run into the a lot when trying to add a variable with a property to a sting like so

Out-host “The users user ID is $($User.name)”

i’m not the best person to explain these things as I have only been doing power shell for about 12 weeks

6

Mark,
As soon as I hit send on my reply I had my epiphany and saw what I did wrong. I had run into this issue back in March of this year and completely forgot what I had to do to correct it. What do you want to bet I’m closer to burning this into my brain now? THANK YOU for the time and knowledge.

7

heh you guys have helped me many times in the past i’m just glad I can contribute in return