Creating objects from text file

Question

We have the following text file:

[UserA]
;Path1 in comment
Path 2
Path 3

[UserB]
Path 1
[UserC]
Path 1
Path 2

We're trying to create one object per user with the properties SamAccountName and Path. The following code does this but it's not able to catch the last object:

Param (
    [String]$File = 'S:\Test\Brecht\Input_Test\files.ini'
)

#<# TEST
    $VerbosePreference = 'Continue'
#>

$Hash = @{}
$Path = @()

$FileContent = Get-Content $File | where {$_ -notlike ';*'} 

$Objects = $FileContent | ForEach-Object {
    Write-Verbose "Text line '$_'"

    if ($_ -match '\[') {
        if ($Path.Length -ne 0) {
            $Hash.Path = $Path
            New-Object –TypeName PSObject -Property $Hash
        }

        $Hash = @{}
        $Path = @()
        $Hash.SamAccountName = $_.Split('[,]')[1]
    }
    else {
        Write-Verbose "Add path '$_'"
        $Path += [PSCustomObject]@{
            Original = $_
            Test     = $null
        }
    }    
}

Is there a better way to do this?

Martin Brandl · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-08 08:27:01Z

1

For a fast solution, you could use the -End parameter from the Foreach-Object cmdlet:

$Objects = $FileContent | ForEach-Object {
    Write-Verbose "Text line '$_'"

    if ($_ -match '\[') {
        if ($Path.Length -ne 0) {
            $Hash.Path = $Path
            New-Object –TypeName PSObject -Property $Hash
        }

        $Hash = @{}
        $Path = @()
        $Hash.SamAccountName = $_.Split('[,]')[1]
    }
    else {
        Write-Verbose "Add path '$_'"
        $Path += [PSCustomObject]@{
            Original = $_
            Test     = $null
        }
    }    
} -End {
 if ($Path.Length -ne 0) {
            $Hash.Path = $Path
            New-Object –TypeName PSObject -Property $Hash
        }
}

answered Mar 8, 2017 at 8:27

Martin Brandl

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2 Comments

DarkLite1 Over a year ago

Oh yes. that's true. Thank you Martin. It's my first attempt at creating objects from a formatted file. I only think I'm not doing it the right way... Repetitive code seems to be not best practice usually.

Martin Brandl Over a year ago

I would probably look for an existing INI file parser and use it or adopt it to your needs.

DarkLite1 · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-08 10:07:17Z

Ultimately I chose to do it with a for loop. It gives me more control:

$FileContent = (Get-Content $File | where {($_ -notlike ';*') -and $_}) -split '\['

$Objects = for ($i=0; $i -lt $FileContent.Length; $i++) {
    if ($FileContent[$i] -eq '') {
        $SpaceIndex = $i
        Write-Verbose "Initiate object"
        $Object = [PSCustomObject]@{
            SamAccountName = $null
            Path           = @()
        }
    }
    if ($FileContent[$i -1] -eq '') {
        Write-Verbose "SamAccountName '$($FileContent[$i])'"
        $Object.SamAccountName = $FileContent[$i].TrimEnd(']')
    }
    if (($i -ne $SpaceIndex) -and ($i -ne $SpaceIndex +1)) {
        Write-Verbose "Path '$($FileContent[$i])'"
        $Object.Path += [PSCustomObject]@{
            Original = $FileContent[$i]
            Test     = $null
        }  
    }
    if (($FileContent[$i+1] -eq '') -or ($i -eq $FileContent.Length -1)) {
        Write-Verbose "Create object"
        $Object
    }
}

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