Microsoft.PowerShell.TextUtility module updates

Jim Truher

July 17th, 20231 7

TextUtility module gets new functionality

We have recently released another preview of the TextUtility module. This module is a collection of tools that are meant to help with working with text content.

Installing the module

You can install this module from the PowerShellGallery with PowerShellGet via:

Install-Module -Name Microsoft.PowerShell.TextUtility -AllowPrerelease

Or you can install it with PSResourceGet via:

Install-PSResource -Name Microsoft.PowerShell.TextUtility -Prerelease

ConvertFrom-TextTable

The most recent pre-release of Microsoft.PowerShell.TextUtility has some new exciting functionality. The new ConvertFrom-TextTable cmdlet allows you to take tabular text and convert it into objects. Also, there is a way to convert some of types of those objects into something other than a string. Using the -ConvertPropertyValue parameter will change the value of the property to a strongly typed value. This means you can do the following:


PS> df | select -first 6 | convertfrom-texttable -ConvertPropertyValue |Ft                       

Filesystem     512-blocks     Used  Available Capacity  iused      ifree %iused Mounted_on
----------     ----------     ----  --------- --------  -----      ----- ------ ----------
/dev/disk4s1s1 3907805752 17699080 1242895000 2%       355382 4291123926 0%     /
devfs                 462      462          0 100%        800          0 100%   /dev
/dev/disk4s3   3907805752  3676600 1242895000 1%         3745 6214475000 0%     /System/Volumes/Preboot
/dev/disk4s5   3907805752  4194376 1242895000 1%            2 6214475000 0%     /System/Volumes/VM
/dev/disk4s6   3907805752    19992 1242895000 1%           19 6214475000 0%     /System/Volumes/Update

PS> df | select -first 6 | convertfrom-texttable -ConvertPropertyValue |?{$_.available -lt 10}|Ft

Filesystem 512-blocks Used Available Capacity iused ifree %iused Mounted_on
---------- ---------- ---- --------- -------- ----- ----- ------ ----------
devfs             462  462         0 100%       800     0 100%   /dev

ConvertFrom-TextTable also allows you to specify where the header line is defined, or skip lines until you get to where the data starts. Additionally, it is possible to take the text output and explicitly create properties by defining where a column starts.

PS> $string = $("a".."z";"A".."Z";0..9) -join ""                                                      
PS> 1..10 | %{$string}|convertfrom-texttable -noheader -columnoffset 0,15,23,40,55 | ft

Property_01     Property_02 Property_03       Property_04     Property_05
-----------     ----------- -----------       -----------     -----------
abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvw    xyzABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ012 3456789
abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvw    xyzABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ012 3456789
abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvw    xyzABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ012 3456789
abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvw    xyzABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ012 3456789
abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvw    xyzABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ012 3456789
abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvw    xyzABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ012 3456789
abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvw    xyzABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ012 3456789
abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvw    xyzABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ012 3456789
abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvw    xyzABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ012 3456789
abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvw    xyzABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXYZ012 3456789

Finally, you can also emit the data as JSON with the -AsJson parameter:

PS> who -p | %{$_.trim()} | convertfrom-texttable -noheader -AsJson  
{ "Property_01": "james", "Property_02": "console", "Property_03": "Jun", "Property_04": "22", "Property_05": "08:34" }
{ "Property_01": "james", "Property_02": "ttys016", "Property_03": "Jun", "Property_04": "22", "Property_05": "10:00" }
{ "Property_01": "james", "Property_02": "ttys017", "Property_03": "Jun", "Property_04": "22", "Property_05": "14:42" }
{ "Property_01": "james", "Property_02": "ttys004", "Property_03": "Jun", "Property_04": "22", "Property_05": "22:08" }
{ "Property_01": "james", "Property_02": "ttys025", "Property_03": "Jun", "Property_04": "23", "Property_05": "00:38" }

Next Steps

This is still in pre-release and we know that there is still work to be done. For example, the parser will create an object out of the header/data separator. This is a little trickier than at first it would seem. The text is inspected and columns width is decided based on the inspected text. These header/data separator lines help the parser understand where the columns are separated. This means we can’t just toss them out as the text is being read. I’m sure you’ll find more things that we can do, and we would love to get your feedback on this new cmdlet so please give this module a try. Please submit your feedback to the repo directly via the issues tab, here.

Thanks so much!

Jim Truher

PowerShell Team