How to make a PowerShell PSObject from the output of a batch file?

Question

I'm trying to make a PowerShell PSObject out of the output of a batch file.

I am calling the batch file like this, which gives me an object containing the output of the batch file:

function browseGateway {
  & $migrationUtilityScript "browse" "-z" "$sourceGateway" "-showIds" "--hideProgress" |
    select -Skip 1 |
    Tee-Object -Variable gatewayItems |
    Out-Null |
    Sort-Object
  Clear-Host
  return $gatewayItems
}

The output looks like this:

folder          27fa3a0eb01caf5f1e31b6aeadd68d35    _Management and internal
folder          2ab9e48a1b83968c3844d93bc0919919    Mediclinic
folder          2c0a788b7f39a0415b423f14c0aa9e9c    OAuth
folder          a49ab6404138110fbd6c993cc9b87e46    customers
folder          b015056834707a42a07bcbfbbeb0a6dd    Users
folder          b015056834707a42a07bcbfbbeb2ca34    Product Offerings
folder          e001cfd0c1c1ffaa18e187b5e72fc718    OTK-3.2.00
policy          20a437bb3db29c1700a4f074773ffa41    DemoLogo
service         2ab9e48a1b83968c3844d93bc08ba780    kevinGMU
service         2ab9e48a1b83968c3844d93bc09596e9    testJJ
service         3afaef13bd772e8e25acfe85c4d101a7    Error
service         88f089fba30183fc4f18b7b7d05f5889    test

I want to put them into PowerShell Objects for further processing:

• Column 1: Types
• Column 2: IDs
• Column 3: Names

I'm pretty sure you need to use New-Object for this, but I'm not entirely sure how to sort the information. Do I need to use a regex for each word and split it up further?

Answer 1

As you are effectively reading in a tab delimited file you don't need to use a RegEx, although you certainly could approach it that way. Once you have your raw input in a $items object you can use the following statements to convert it into an array of PSObject :

$items| ForEach-Object {
  $properties = $_ -Split "`t"
  New-Object PSObject -Property @{
    Type = $properties[0].Trim();
    ID = $properties[1].Trim();
    Name = $properties[2].Trim();
  }
}

Results in:

Name                     ID                               Type
----                     --                               ----
_Management and internal 27fa3a0eb01caf5f1e31b6aeadd68d35 folder
Mediclinic               2ab9e48a1b83968c3844d93bc0919919 folder
OAuth                    2c0a788b7f39a0415b423f14c0aa9e9c folder
customers                a49ab6404138110fbd6c993cc9b87e46 folder
Users                    b015056834707a42a07bcbfbbeb0a6dd folder
Product Offerings        b015056834707a42a07bcbfbbeb2ca34 folder
OTK-3.2.00               e001cfd0c1c1ffaa18e187b5e72fc718 folder
DemoLogo                 20a437bb3db29c1700a4f074773ffa41 policy
kevinGMU                 2ab9e48a1b83968c3844d93bc08ba780 service
testJJ                   2ab9e48a1b83968c3844d93bc09596e9 service
Error                    3afaef13bd772e8e25acfe85c4d101a7 service
test                     88f089fba30183fc4f18b7b7d05f5889 service

If you wanted to use a RegEx simply swap out the $_.Split for an equivalent $_ -Match <RegEx> and instead of referencing the $properties array you would be referencing the $matches variable. There is an exceptionally good run down of RegEx in PowerShell on Jouni Heikniemi's Blog.

Answer 2

You can do this quite easily with some -split s - regex is a tad bit overkill for something as simple as this.

$Content = (Invoke-WebRequest "http://pastebin.com/raw/591dk6Gj").Content

$FinalObj = $Content -split "`r`n" | % {
    $Delimited = $_ -split "`t"

    [PSCustomObject]@{
        Col1 = $Delimited[0]
        Col2 = $Delimited[1]
        Col3 = $Delimited[2]
    }
}

return $FinalObj

You end up with $FinalObj containing this:

Col1            Col2                             Col3                    
----            ----                             ----                    
folder          27fa3a0eb01caf5f1e31b6aeadd68d35 _Management and internal
folder          2ab9e48a1b83968c3844d93bc0919919 Mediclinic              
folder          2c0a788b7f39a0415b423f14c0aa9e9c OAuth                   
folder          a49ab6404138110fbd6c993cc9b87e46 customers               
folder          b015056834707a42a07bcbfbbeb0a6dd Users                   
folder          b015056834707a42a07bcbfbbeb2ca34 Product Offerings       
folder          e001cfd0c1c1ffaa18e187b5e72fc718 OTK-3.2.00              
policy          20a437bb3db29c1700a4f074773ffa41 DemoLogo                
service         2ab9e48a1b83968c3844d93bc08ba780 kevinGMU                
service         2ab9e48a1b83968c3844d93bc09596e9 testJJ                  
service         3afaef13bd772e8e25acfe85c4d101a7 Error                   
service         88f089fba30183fc4f18b7b7d05f5889 test