PowerShell Custom Order Sorting

Question

I have a simple script that runs a cmdlet of a 3rd party application and outputs a table with 3 columns - Name, Result, JobName. Result only contains one of three values: Success, Warning, or Failed.

Output:

Name      Result   JobName                          
----      ------   -------                          
server1   Success  servers-A            
server2   Success  servers-A            
server3   Warning  servers-A            
server4   Success  servers-A   
server5   Warning  servers-B            
server6   Success  servers-B            
server7   Failed   servers-C            
server8   Failed   servers-C

What I'd like to do is sort the table by the Result column but in the following custom order (order of importance): Failed, Warning, then Success.

Example

Name    Result  JobName    
----    ------  -------                      
server7 Failed  servers-C            
server8 Failed  servers-C
server3 Warning servers-A            
server5 Warning servers-B            
server1 Success servers-A            
server2 Success servers-A            
server4 Success servers-A   
server6 Success servers-B

How can this be achieved?

Are you able to post your code please so we can see how it is doing this? You could specify the -decending switch in the Sort-Object command, but seeing your code will help see exactly what to do. — Ross Lyons
– Ross Lyons, Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 8:26

Tomalak · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-09 12:19:31Z

31

You can use Array.IndexOf(), which effectively translates strings into numbers:

$importance = "Failed", "Warning", "Success"

$result | Sort-Object { $importance.IndexOf($_.Result) }

Catch: Any unexpected value in Result will be sorted to the top, because IndexOf will return -1 for values it can't find.

Test:

$importance = "Failed", "Warning", "Success"

$list = @(
    @{ Result = "Warning" }
    @{ Result = "Success" }
    @{ Result = "Failed" }
)

$list | Sort-Object { $importance.IndexOf($_.Result) }

Result:

Name                           Value                                                                                                                                                                 
----                           -----                                                                                                                                                                 
Result                         Failed                                                                                                                                                                
Result                         Warning                                                                                                                                                               
Result                         Success

edited Feb 9, 2018 at 12:19

answered Feb 9, 2018 at 8:29

Tomalak

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7 Comments

Vasil Nikolov Over a year ago

This is genius! When a scriptblock is provided in Sort-Object , the array is sorted based on the output of the scriptblock, in that case will be something like -1;-1;0;-1;-1;2;-1-1;1 and when you sort this you get -1;-1;-1;-1;-1;0;1;2 . Looks like the scriptblock acts like a temporary column attached to original array.

Tomalak Over a year ago

@Vasil Yes, that's exactly what it does - it sorts by any expression. The simplest expression would be "some property of the original object", but "some value that I just calculated" works the exactly same.

Karthick Ganesan Over a year ago

Works like a charm! However, I'm not able to understand the above inner working of Sort-Object { ... } explained by Vasil & Tomalak. Can one of you help me understand this or point out any docs that I can refer to?

Tomalak Over a year ago

@KarthickGanesan Sort-Object { ... } evaluates the script block for each item in the input. The result of the script block is then used for sorting. In the above code, the result of the script block is the numerical index of the input string in the $importance array. Therefore the order of that array determines the order things will be sorted.

Karthick Ganesan Over a year ago

Thanks, Tomalak for your response. It makes sense! I was confused when Vasil listed out 8 elements in his comment. Just found that he referred to the dataset in the OP. :)

|

ΩmegaMan · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-03 14:54:58Z

7

Here is a script block option:

ForEach ($Result in 'Success','Warning','Failed') {
    $Obj | Where-Object {$_.Result -eq $Result } | Sort-Object Name
}

Assumes that your cmdlet has output the original object into a variable named $Obj.

edited Jul 3, 2019 at 14:54

ΩmegaMan

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answered Feb 9, 2018 at 8:45

Mark Wragg

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2 Comments

scatterbits Over a year ago

Thank you, your suggestion worked for me! To complicate things further, is it possible to then sort by Name? I get the Result column sorted as I want but the name objects (server names) are random. Thanks again

Mark Wragg Over a year ago

Yes, we can just add it in after the Where-Object. I've edited to include that.

Bbb · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-06 18:43:05Z

Here is how I did this, you pass the encompassing object and the property name you want to sort on and it brings you back a properly sorted object without having to try and work around the sort-object command (which is awesome) without knowing what's going on under its hood. Hopefully this helps.

function sortObjectManually
{
    Param(
    [parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
    $unsortedObject,
    [parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
    $propertyName
    )
    
    $sortedObject = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList;
    foreach ($object in $unsortedObject)
    {
        if ($sortedObject.Count -eq 0)
        {
            $sortedObject.Add($object) | Out-Null;
        }
        else
        {
            $inserted = $false;
            for ($i = 0; $i -lt $sortedObject.Count; $i++)
            {
                if ($object.$propertyName -lt $sortedObject[$i].$propertyName)
                {
                    $sortedObject.Insert($i, $object);
                    $inserted = $true;
                    break;
                }
            }
            
            if ($inserted -eq $false)
            {
                $sortedObject.Add($object) | Out-Null;
            }
        }
    }
    
    return $sortedObject;
}

cls;
$prop = "ServerName";
$results = sortObjectManually -unsortedObject $endInvokeArr -propertyName $prop;

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