{"id":764,"date":"2014-08-29T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2014\/08\/29\/creating-custom-powershell-objects\/"},"modified":"2014-08-29T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T00:01:00","slug":"creating-custom-powershell-objects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/creating-custom-powershell-objects\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating Custom PowerShell Objects"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/b>: Use Windows PowerShell to create custom objects prior to data export.<\/span><\/p>\n

Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. It is nice and cool this morning so I decided to walk over to the neighborhood coffee and tea shop to have a cup of tea. I can sit outside and enjoy the day. There is free wireless Internet, so I brought my Surface Pro 3 to check my email sent to scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, hang out on Facebook and Twitter, and generally do all the things I do in my day-to-day life as the Scripting Guy.<\/p>\n

Today, I want to look at creating custom objects from Windows PowerShell as a way of outputting the data that I groomed nicely throughout the week. Because I planned on getting to this point in my script from the very outset, it will be pretty easy to put the pieces together to groom my data. I transformed the date, addresses, and names (see <\/span>Use PowerShell to Normalize Names Before Data Import<\/a>), so I expect there to be three sections for these. However, in the end, transforming the date was so easy (see <\/span>Use PowerShell to Fix Date from CSV File<\/a>) that I decided to code it directly in the portion of the script that creates the custom object.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, because I knew I would be putting everything together, I used the same sorts of variables. So the first portion of the script, which reads the CSV file and walks through the collection is the same:<\/p>\n

$datain = import-csv C:\\DataIn\\DataDump.csv<\/p>\n

Foreach ($d in $datain)<\/p>\n

    {<\/p>\n

Now, I define a region for the name. To do this, I use the #region<\/b> and #endregion<\/b> tags. Now, I copy the script that I created earlier to normalize names, and I assign it to a region. This is shown here:<\/p>\n

#region Name<\/p>\n

 If($d.name -match  ',')<\/p>\n

        {<\/p>\n

          $name = (Get-Culture).textinfo.ToTitleCase($d.name).Split(',').trim()<\/p>\n

          $ln = $name[0]<\/p>\n

          $fn = $name[1]<\/p>\n

          }<\/p>\n

        ELSE {<\/p>\n

         $name = $d.Name.Split().trim()<\/p>\n

         $fn = $name[0]<\/p>\n

         $ln = $name[1]<\/p>\n

           }<\/p>\n

#endregion<\/p>\n

Now I add the region for the address. Once again, I copy the essential transforming code from the script I wrote earlier (see Use PowerShell to Fix Address Issues Prior to Export<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I also create an address region so it makes the script easier to read and troubleshoot. The command is shown here:<\/p>\n

#region Address<\/p>\n

     $a = $d.address.split(',')<\/p>\n

     $str = $a[0] -replace '(Street|street)','ST'<\/p>\n

     $city = If($a[1] -match 'dwpt') {"Dewpoint"} ELSE {$a[1]}<\/p>\n

     $state = if($a[2] -match 'South Carolina') {"SC"} ELSE {$a[2]}<\/p>\n

     $zip = If($a[3].trim().Length -gt 5) {"Error for $a"} ELSE {$a[3]}<\/p>\n

#endregion<\/p>\n

To create and output the custom object, I use the [PSCustomObject] type accelerator, and I assign a hash table to the [PSCustomObject]. Each element in the hash table is in the form of "property name equals value.<\/i>" <\/i>Almost every value I need is assigned via a variable. The exception is the date. I decided to do this as a single line of code, as shown here:<\/p>\n

Date = [datetime]("{0}\/{1}\/{2}" -f $d.month, $d.day, $d.year)<\/p>\n

I also call the ToUpper<\/b> <\/i>method on the strings that are stored in the Street and City properties of the object:<\/p>\n

Street = $str.ToUpper()<\/p>\n

City = $city.ToUpper()<\/p>\n

The last thing I do is clean up the state<\/b> property. I trim it to remove any leading or trailing spaces. I choose only two letters (beginning at the first position), and I make them capital letters. Here is that command:<\/p>\n

State = $state.Trim().Substring(0,2).ToUpper()<\/p>\n

And that is it. Here is the complete CreateCustomObjectsFromData.ps1 script:<\/p>\n

$datain = import-csv C:\\DataIn\\DataDump.csv<\/p>\n

Foreach ($d in $datain)<\/p>\n

    {<\/p>\n

#region Name<\/p>\n

 If($d.name -match  ',')<\/p>\n

        {<\/p>\n

          $name = (Get-Culture).textinfo.ToTitleCase($d.name).Split(',').trim()<\/p>\n

          $ln = $name[0]<\/p>\n

          $fn = $name[1]<\/p>\n

          }<\/p>\n

        ELSE {<\/p>\n

         $name = $d.Name.Split().trim()<\/p>\n

         $fn = $name[0]<\/p>\n

         $ln = $name[1]<\/p>\n

           }<\/p>\n

#endregion<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 #region Address<\/p>\n

     $a = $d.address.split(',')<\/p>\n

     $str = $a[0] -replace '(Street|street)','ST'<\/p>\n

     $city = If($a[1] -match 'dwpt') {"Dewpoint"} ELSE {$a[1]}<\/p>\n

     $state = if($a[2] -match 'South Carolina') {"SC"} ELSE {$a[2]}<\/p>\n

     $zip = If($a[3].trim().Length -gt 5) {"Error for $a"} ELSE {$a[3]}<\/p>\n

#endregion<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

#region Create Custom Object<\/p>\n

     [PSCustomObject]@{<\/p>\n

       Lname = $ln<\/p>\n

       Fname = $fn<\/p>\n

       Date = [datetime]("{0}\/{1}\/{2}" -f $d.month, $d.day, $d.year)<\/p>\n

       Street = $str.ToUpper()<\/p>\n

       City = $city.ToUpper()<\/p>\n

       State = $state.Trim().Substring(0,2).ToUpper()<\/p>\n

       Zip = $zip }<\/p>\n

#endregion<\/p>\n

    } <\/p>\n

And here is the output from the script:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

That's it for Data Manipulation Week. I invite you to follow me on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/p>\n

Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/b> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Use Windows PowerShell to create custom objects prior to data export. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. It is nice and cool this morning so I decided to walk over to the neighborhood coffee and tea shop to have a cup of tea. I can sit outside and enjoy the day. There is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[529,530,3,4,45],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-comma-and-other-delimited-files","tag-data","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Summary: Use Windows PowerShell to create custom objects prior to data export. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. It is nice and cool this morning so I decided to walk over to the neighborhood coffee and tea shop to have a cup of tea. I can sit outside and enjoy the day. There is […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}