Powershell List / JSON Output

PowerShell Help
1

I’m looking to create JSON output from a Powershell script but as i always do… i’m struggling with formatting :frowning:

The format I’m looking to create is for a system called PRTG and their example is:

		{
			"prtg": {
				"result": [{
						"channel": "First channel",
						"value": 10
					},
					{
						"channel": "Second channel",
						"value": 20
					}
				]
			}
		}

in Powershell i have come up with this which i know isn’t right as the IDE is giving me red exclamation marks

$body = @(
	"prtg" = @{
		"result" = @(
			{
				channel = "Channel 1"
				value   = $val1
			},
			{
				channel = "Channel 2"
				value = $val2
			}
		)
	}
)

ConvertTo-Json -InputObject $body

Can someone kindly help with where i’m going wrong please, most likely very wrong :slight_smile:

Thanks
Jamie

2

Don’t make it hard on yourself, let powershell do the work

 $body = @{
    prtg = @{
        result = @(
            @{
                Channel = "Channel 1"
                value = $val1
            },
            @{
                    channel = "Channel 2"
                    value   = $val2
            }
        )
    }
} | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 4

{
  "prtg": {
    "result": [
      {
        "value": 10,
        "Channel": "Channel 1"
      },
      {
        "value": 20,
        "channel": "Channel 2"
      }
    ]
  }
}

As you can see hash tables don’t care about order by default. I wouldn’t imagine it mattering for an api call but just in case here’s how you can maintain the properties order

 $body = @{
    prtg = @{
        result = @(
            [ordered]@{
                Channel = "Channel 1"
                value = $val1
            },
            [ordered]@{
                    channel = "Channel 2"
                    value   = $val2
            }
        )
    }
} | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 4

Just remember it’s easier to create hash tables and then convert that to json in powershell. You can build up the object too, like this

$body = @{
    prtg = @{}
}

$body.prtg = @{
    Result = @{}
}

$body.prtg.Result = @{
    Channel = "Channel 1"
    value = $val1
},
@{
    Channel = "Channel 2"
    value = $val2
}

$body | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 3
2 Likes
3

Thank you for much for your help, the code you provided worked perfectly and the explanations really helped.

I actually found a blog post about this which really helped and i got to this

$body = @{
	prtg = @{
		result = @(
			@{
				channel = "Channel 1"
				value   = 1
			},
			@{
				channel = "Channel 2"
				value   = 2
			}
		)
	}
} 

$json = ConvertTo-Json -InputObject $body

However prtg wasn’t happy and it’s because the output was formatting like:

{
    "prtg":  {
                 "result":  [
                                "System.Collections.Hashtable",
                                "System.Collections.Hashtable"
                            ]
             }
}

So i guess there is a difference between piping to convertto-json and using the convertto command?

4

Maybe the depth parameter…

5

Ah yes, adding depth fixed it :slight_smile:

Thank you very much for your help, and the breakdown

$body = @{
    prtg = @{}
}

$body.prtg = @{
    Result = @{}
}

$body.prtg.Result = @{
    Channel = "Channel 1"
    value = $val1
},
@{
    Channel = "Channel 2"
    value = $val2
}

$body | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 3

Regards,
Jamie