Powershell: Assign properties to existing array

Question

I have a single dimensional array that I get from either a get-content command or from multi-line text box input. I want to assign a property to the entries in this array, then add more properties to use later in my script.

Something like:

$items = new-object psobject
$items | add-member -membertype NoteProperty –name Name –value NotSet
$items | add-member -membertype NoteProperty –name Percent –value NotSet

$names = @($textboxInputText.Lines)
$names | % { $items | Add-Member noteproperty $_.Name $temp.($_.Name) }

foreach ($item in $items)
{
$percent = {script block}
$item.percent = $percent
}

I know this is broken code, but I wanted to give an example of where I was headed. I've searched far and wide but haven't been able to find exactly what I was looking for.

EDIT:

Code Goal: Get input from a text box or text file (single line entries). Have those entries be assigned to the "name" property, then add a second property to the array (Percent) that will need to be filled in with another block of code.

EDIT 2:

Collection is being used in the following code:

foreach ($item in $collection) {
    $psConsoleFile = "PATH TO FILE.pc1"
    $variable1 = "something"
    $variable2 = "something else"
    $command = ".`"Command1 $item.name | Command2 -Switch $variable1 -Switch2 $variable2`""
    $OutputScriptBlock = "powershell.exe -PSConsoleFile $psConsoleFile -command $command"
}

The output of this is as follows:

powershell.exe -PSConsoleFile "PATH TO FILE.psc1" -command ."Command1 @{Name=name1; Percentage=}.name | Command2 -Switch1 something"

Why is the code outputting the full row instead of the name?

Also, I'm using PS 4.0 for all implementations of this script.

Where did the $temp variable come from? It looks like you don't want to add properties to the items in the array, but add properties to a single item based on the items in that array, is that correct? — TheMadTechnician
– TheMadTechnician, Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 0:13
$temp is a placeholder variable but I admit that line doesn't work -- it's just an example. The array $names will have multiple items and I want it to have the Name and Percent properties, but the array doesn't have those properties initially. — McKenning
– McKenning, Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 1:23

TheMadTechnician · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-18 22:07:51Z

Ok, I see the problem here. So you have an array of Strings that you got either from a multi-line text box form object, or from a text document with the Get-Content command, but what you really want is an array of PSObjects.

A string object can not have additional properties added to it like you want (well, not conventionally, let's just not go there because you won't be happy with where things end up, trust me on this one). Instead let's take that array of strings, and for each string create a PSObject for it like you want. You will want a ForEach-Object loop for this to be simple. Either way you will want to pipe your input (either the textbox or the get-content command) to a ForEach loop, and you can assign the whole thing to a variable that will collect all of the objects to be worked with later (to update the Percent property). Something like this should accomplish what you want:

[Array]$Collection = $textboxInputText.Lines | ForEach{
    New-Object PSObject -Property @{
        'Name' = $_
        'Percentage' = $null
    }
}

I specified $Collection as the type [Array] so that if you wanted to index into it later there wouldn't be any issues should your input only be a single item. Then if you want to update the percentages you can do that by running $Collection through a ForEach loop (either inline or not)

$Collection | ForEach{ $_.Percentage = {Script Block} }

or

ForEach($Item in $Collection){
    $Item.Percentage = {Script Block}
}

Now, things to note here... You are not going to be able to just assign $Collection back to your textbox. You could probably assign $Collection.Name, but that may require a newer version of PS since I don't know how backwards compatible that is. If you use a Get-Content command instead of referencing the textbox, simply change $textboxInputText.Lines | ForEach{ to Get-Content "C:\Path\To\File.txt" | ForEach{ and you should be all set.

Edit: Ok, the problem you have now isn't with the object but with how you're trying to expand a property of it within a double quotes. To access the name you would have to create a sub expression within the double quotes by wrapping $Item.Name within $(). So that line for you would look like:

    $command = ".`"Command1 $($item.name) | Command2 -Switch $variable1 -Switch2 $variable2`""

I think that's working because if I loop the collection, I can good output with $collection.name. However, with the code I am using (and worked prior to making the collection) it gives me the following output: "@{Name=name1; Percentage=}.name" instead of just "name1"

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