How do I Pipe Value of PowerShell Array Value to Export-Csv?

Asked by: goneal

I use the script posted in the code section of this post to return information from Active Directory.

What I would like to know is how I can pipe the results of the $colResults variable to a csv without it giving me the LDAP and properties of the System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry object. What I'm after is a comma separated values machine list. The last 2 lines of code will give me exactly what I want, but it writes it to the host.

I have tried repositioning the pipe line for the Export-csv call, but it either prompts me for the input object for each machine, or else if I put it at the end, it returns an empty file with just a length header and a numeric value representing the length of the last object passed, which I assume to be a machine name.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

$strFilter = "(&(objectCategory=Computer)(Name=FBX*))"
 
$objDomain = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry
 
$objSearcher = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher
$objSearcher.SearchRoot = $objDomain
$objSearcher.PageSize = 1000
$objSearcher.Filter = $strFilter
$objSearcher.SearchScope = "Subtree"
 
$colProplist = "name"
foreach ($i in $colPropList){$objSearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add($i)}
 
$colResults = $objSearcher.FindAll()|Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation "C:\Documents and Settings\tlafferty\Desktop\comps.csv"
#foreach ($objResult in $colResults)
 #   {$objItem = $objResult.Properties; $objItem.name}
 cls;Write-Host "Finished..."

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$strFilter = "(&(objectCategory=Computer)(Name=FBX*))" $objDomain = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry $objSearcher = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher $objSearcher.SearchRoot = $objDomain $objSearcher.PageSize = 1000 $objSearcher.Filter = $strFilter $objSearcher.SearchScope = "Subtree" $colProplist = "name" foreach ($i in $colPropList){[void]$objSearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add($i)} $colResults = $objSearcher.FindAll() $colResults | %{ $a = New-Object PSObject ; $a | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Name -Value $_.Properties.Item("Name")[0] ; $a } | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation "C:\Documents and Settings\tlafferty\Desktop\comps.csv"

PropertiesToLoad.Add returns a value, a count of properties. It's not very interesting, Voiding that is one way of dropping the value so it doesn't appear when the code runs. Otherways include redirecting the output to Null, or assigning it to a variable (say $Return) and ignoring it.

For the sake of discussion, I would take a few short cuts in the code above :)

Using $Null in place of the directory entry ($objDomain) will have it use the default value, the current domain.

The Filter can be passed in as a parameter when creating the Directory Searcher.

The SearchScope defaults to subtree so has been removed from the code (if you want to see that, just run "$DirSearcher" on its own with the example below, it'll show you the values set).

Using PropertiesToLoad.AddRange saves us a loop through each properties. AddRange doesn't return a value either so there's no need to Void it or deal with the returned value. It needs an array as the parameter, which is why $PropList is @("value1", "value2") now.

Using Select-Object with a custom value allows us to skip creation of a new object and separate addition of a property to that object. It also loses the other loop.

Finally, you may also consider grabbing these:

http://www.quest.com/powershell/activeroles-server.aspx

Because those will shorten your code to this:

Get-QADComputer -Name "FBX*" | Select-Object Name | Export-CSV "somefile.csv"

PowerShell is fun ;)

Chris

$LdapFilter = "(&(objectCategory=Computer)(name=FBX*))"
 
$DirSearcher = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher($Null, $LdapFilter)
$DirSearcher.PageSize = 1000
 
$PropList = @("name")
$DirSearcher.PropertiesToLoad.AddRange($PropList)
 
$DirSearcher.FindAll() | `
  Select-Object @{n='Name';e={ $_.Properties["name"] }} | `
  Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation "C:\Documents and Settings\tlafferty\Desktop\comps.csv"

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How do I Pipe Value of PowerShell Array Value to Export-Csv?

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