Update Array with multiple Values

PowerShell Help
1

Hi All,

PowerShell Newbie, so please forgive any misuse of lingo. Anyway, I’m trying to create an Array that has 4 properties and multiple values per property. I then want to be able to programmatically insert values into the array. I’ve included an example of the data that I expect, and some code to initialize the array and insert values into it.

Is there a different way to insert values into the array? I can’t seem to find anything online. I intend to use a while loop to do the inserts.

Thanks!

Example of what the array should look like:

Date1 Date2 String1 String2
01/01/2023 01/02/2023 MyString MyString
01/16/2023 01/02/2023 MyString MyString
01/01/2023 01/12/2023 MyString MyString
01/01/2023 01/02/2023 MyString MyString

#initialize the array
$Array = @([pscustomObject]@{Date1=$null; Date2=$null; String1=$null; String2=$null}

#Successful update
$Array += New-Object -TypeName psobject -Property @{{Date1= Get-Date; Date2=Get-Date; String1='MyString'; String2='Mystring'}
2

Your question and the example sounds/looks quite abstract. You may explain what you’re “real world use case” is. Then we might be able to recommend something meaningful.

To use the += operator is most of the time a bad idea because it destroys the array and creates a new one with newly added data. You may use a loop instead.

3

It is an object, not an array. Think of an object as an array of hash tables. The += is not best practice, so take a look at this as an example:

$svcs = 'AudioSrv', 'BITS','EventLog','Netlogon'

$results = foreach ($svcName in $svcs) {
    #Get data for the specific service
    $currentService = Get-Service -Name $svcName

    #Output rolls up to the $results variables
    [PSCustomObject]@{
        Status      = $currentService.Status
        Name        = $currentService.Name
        DisplayName = $currentService.DisplayName
    }

}

#Variable with all results
$results
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4

This is part of an ETL process. I am making an API call that checks for records between Date1 and Date2 and writes them to a file that has a name like the following, FileName_Mystring1_MyString2.xml.

The MyString1 and MyString2 are just the Date1 and Date2 respectively in string format, so that they can be appended to the filename.

I need to dynamically populate the pscustomObject that I’m creating. I won’t always use the same date range(difference between Date1 and Date2).

Once I have the pscustomObject loaded with various date ranges, then I was planning on using a foreach loop to execute an api call for every date range.

Please let me know if that makes sense. I can also try and code this out in powershell before you answer.

Thanks!

5

Talked about this recently here, this is creating an object and looping to run a command:

Convertfrom-csv - PowerShell Help - PowerShell Forums

As a note, a date is a string coming from a CSV or a manual object unless you cast or parse it to a DateTime. If the API requires the date to be in a specific format, need to make it a date time first to do date formatting, math, etc.

$etls = @'
Name,StartDate,EndDate
ETL1,3/5/2023 16:00,3/7/2023 18:00
ETL2,3/6/2023 13:00,3/7/2023 16:00
ETL3,3/7/2023 15:00,3/7/2023 19:00
'@ | ConvertFrom-Csv 


$results = foreach ($etl in $etls) {
    $body = @{
        start_date = (Get-Date $etl.StartDate -Format "o")
        end_date   = (Get-Date $etl.EndDate -Format "o")
    }

    $invokeWebRequestSplat = @{
        Uri         = 'https://myapi/v1/starships'
        Body        = ($body | ConvertTo-Json)
        Method      = 'Post'
        ContentType = 'application/json'
    }

    Invoke-WebRequest @invokeWebRequestSplat
}

$results
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