PowerShell format text file

Question

I get the below output from a PowerShell query. I don't have access to the server to run the query, so I have no option to influence the output format.

Example:

Name          : folderC
FullName      : D:\folderA\folderB\folderC
Length        :
CreationTime  : 2/8/2014 11:12:58 AM
LastAccessTime: 2/8/2014 11:12:58 AM

Name          : filename.txt
FullName      : D:\folderA\folderB\filename.txt
Length        : 71560192
CreationTime  : 11/25/2015 3:10:43 PM
LastAccessTime: 11/25/2015 3:10:43 PM

How can I format above content to get something more usable, maybe like a table format like so:

Name|FullName|Length|CreationTime|LastAccessTime

Is the output objects or text? Pipe it through Get-Member (look for TypeName at the beginning of that output). — alroc
– alroc, Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 13:57

Dave Sexton · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-20 14:21:51Z

4

I think you need to split the text into records, replace the colons with equals so that you can use the ConvertFrom-StringData to turn each record into a hash which you can then feed into New-Object to convert into an object. Outputting the the object into pipe separated data can then be done with the ConvertTo-Csv. Something like so:

$x = @"
Name           : folderC
FullName       : D:\folderA\folderB\folderC
Length         : 0
CreationTime   : 2/8/2014 11:12:58 AM
LastAccessTime : 2/8/2014 11:12:58 AM

Name           : filename.txt
FullName       : D:\folderA\folderB\filename.txt
Length         : 71560192
CreationTime   : 11/25/2015 3:10:43 PM
LastAccessTime : 11/25/2015 3:10:43 PM
"@

($x -split '[\r\n]+(?=Name)') | % {
  $_ -replace '\s+:\s+', '='
} | % {
  $_ | ConvertFrom-StringData
} | % {
  New-Object psobject -Property $_
}  | ConvertTo-Csv -Delimiter '|' -NoTypeInformation

answered Jan 20, 2016 at 14:21

Dave Sexton

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3 Comments

mklement0 Over a year ago

Kudos for the clever block-splitting approach and ConvertFrom-StringData / New-Object combo; the only problem is that ConvertFrom-StringData interprets unquoted \ sequences as control-character escapes. Doubling the \ instances in the input should fix that ($_ -replace '\s+:\s+', '=') -replace '\\', '\\'

Dave Sexton Over a year ago

@mklement0 good point, probably needs a bit more testing with a larger data set. I think there maybe an issue when them is no value too. Maybe turning the strings into quoted strings might be the way to go. Make the replace: $_ -replace '\s+:\s+', "'='" and add another $_ -replace '^|$', "'"

mklement0 Over a year ago

Good point re empty values - they indeed cause problems. Quoting does not help, unfortunately - ConvertFrom-StringData retains them as literals.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:30:58Z

^{As @alroc notes in a comment on the question, it is possible that objects are available to the OP, given that they state that the output is "from a Powershell query" - if so, simple reformatting of the object array using the usual cmdlets is an option.

By contrast, this answer assumes that only a text representation, as printed in the question, is available.}

Dave Sexton's answer is a simpler and more elegant choice, if:

the input has no empty values (the OP's sample input does).
the input file is small enough to be read into memory as a whole.

Consider the approach below to avoid the issues above and/or if you want more control over how the input is converted into custom objects, notably with respect to creating properties with types other than [string]: extend the toObj() function below (as written, all properties are also just strings).

Get-Content File | % `
  -begin {
    function toObj([string[]] $lines) {
      $keysAndValues = $lines -split '(?<=^[^ :]+)\s*: '
      $htProps = @{}
      for ($i = 0; $i -lt $keysAndValues.Count; $i += 2) {
        $htProps.($keysAndValues[$i]) = $keysAndValues[$i+1]
      }
      return [PSCustomObject] $htProps
    }
    $lines = @()
  } `
  -process {
    if ($_.trim() -ne '') { 
      $lines += $_
    } else {
      if ($lines) { toObj $lines }
      $lines = @()
    }
  } `
  -end {
    if ($lines) { toObj $lines }
  } | Format-Table

Explanation:

Uses ForEach-Object (%) with separate begin, process, and end blocks.
The -begin, executed once at the beginning:
- Defines helper function toObj() that converts a block of contiguous nonempty input lines to a single custom object.
  - toObj() splits an array of lines into an array of contiguous key-value elements, converts that array to a hashtable, which is then converted to a custom object.
- Initializes array $lines, which will store the lines of a single block of contiguous nonempty input lines
The -process block, executed for each input line:
- If the input line at hand is nonempty: Adds it to the current block of contiguous nonempty input lines stored in array $lines.
- Otherwise: Submits the current block to toObj() for conversion to a custom object, and then resets the $lines array to start the next block. In effect, toObj() is invoked for each paragraph (run of nonempty lines).
The -end block, executed once at the end:
- Submits the last paragraph to toObj() for conversion to a custom object.
Finally, the resulting array of custom objects is passed to Format-Table.

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