{"id":1123,"date":"2008-03-15T07:30:02","date_gmt":"2008-03-15T07:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/heaths\/2008\/03\/15\/group-by-different-properties-for-format-table\/"},"modified":"2019-02-17T15:30:04","modified_gmt":"2019-02-17T22:30:04","slug":"group-by-different-properties-for-format-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/group-by-different-properties-for-format-table\/","title":{"rendered":"Group by Different Properties for Format-Table"},"content":{"rendered":"

For my Windows Installer PowerShell Extensions<\/a>, I’ve been simplifying some of the use cases and adding additional formats. One thing I wanted to do was display source list information in a table and group either by the attached ProductCode or PatchCode properties. The format-table cmdlet doesn’t support multiple properties and doesn’t appear to allow you to condition the label. It also seemed that Display.xml<\/em>, or *.formats.ps1xml<\/em> files, didn’t natively support grouping by multiple property names.<\/p>\n

The help topic about_Display.xml<\/em> hinted at a CustomControl tag, but examples of this and related tags in the default *.formats.ps1xml<\/em> files offered little insight about their true power. With some help from a simple user-generated XML schema<\/a> and some trial and error, I was able to display a label with an appropriate value conditionally, such that the following expressions displayed the partial table shown below.<\/p>\n

PS> $packages = get-msiproductinfo | ?{ $_.Name -match \"Visual Studio\" }\nPS> $packages += get-msipatchinfo\nPS> $packages | get-msisource | format-table -view package\n    ProductCode<\/span>: {388E4B09-3E71-4649-8921-F44A3A2954A7}\nIndex Type    Path\n----- ----    ----\n    0 Network m:\\c0367ae0d89851da1a\\\n    1 Network C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\Microsoft Shared\\VSTO\\8.0\\Micros...\n    2 Network m:\\3d218a0f32f61beaf41a01459217\\\n    PatchCode<\/span>: {6E52C409-0D0D-4B84-AB63-463438D4D33B}\nIndex Type    Path\n----- ----    ----\n    0 Network m:\\ec91ccc92c8f730e8d87188036\\\n<\/pre>\n
I accomplished this by using a scriptblock to group, but referencing a CustomControl with multiple ExpressionBinding elements as shown in the partial example below.<\/p>\n
<<\/span>Configuration<\/span>>\n  <<\/span>Controls<\/span>>\n    <<\/span>Control<\/span>>\n      <<\/span>Name<\/span>><\/span>PatchOrProductGrouping<\/<\/span>Name<\/span>>\n      <<\/span>CustomControl<\/span>>\n        <<\/span>CustomEntries<\/span>>\n          <<\/span>CustomEntry<\/span>>\n            <<\/span>CustomItem<\/span>>\n              <<\/span>Frame<\/span>>\n                <<\/span>LeftIndent<\/span>><\/span>4<\/<\/span>LeftIndent<\/span>>\n                <<\/span>CustomItem<\/span>>\n                  <<\/span>ExpressionBinding<\/span>>\n                    <<\/span>ItemSelectionCondition<\/span>>\n                      <<\/span>ScriptBlock<\/span>><![CDATA[<\/span>$_.ProductCode -ne $null<\/span>]]><\/<\/span>ScriptBlock<\/span>>\n                    <\/<\/span>ItemSelectionCondition<\/span>>\n                    <<\/span>ScriptBlock<\/span>><![CDATA[<\/span>\"ProductCode: \" + $_.ProductCode<\/span>]]><\/<\/span>ScriptBlock<\/span>>\n                  <\/<\/span>ExpressionBinding<\/span>>\n                  <<\/span>ExpressionBinding<\/span>>\n                    <<\/span>ItemSelectionCondition<\/span>>\n                      <<\/span>ScriptBlock<\/span>><![CDATA[<\/span>$_.PatchCode -ne $null<\/span>]]><\/<\/span>ScriptBlock<\/span>>\n                    <\/<\/span>ItemSelectionCondition<\/span>>\n                    <<\/span>ScriptBlock<\/span>><![CDATA[<\/span>\"PatchCode: \" + $_.PatchCode<\/span>]]><\/<\/span>ScriptBlock<\/span>>\n                  <\/<\/span>ExpressionBinding<\/span>>\n                  <<\/span>NewLine<\/span>\/>\n                <\/<\/span>CustomItem<\/span>>\n              <\/<\/span>Frame<\/span>>\n            <\/<\/span>CustomItem<\/span>>\n          <\/<\/span>CustomEntry<\/span>>\n        <\/<\/span>CustomEntries<\/span>>\n      <\/<\/span>CustomControl<\/span>>\n    <\/<\/span>Control<\/span>><\/span>\n  <\/<\/span>Controls<\/span>>\n  <<\/span>ViewDefinitions<\/span>>\n    <<\/span>View<\/span>><\/span>\n      <<\/span>Name<\/span>><\/span>Package<\/<\/span>Name<\/span>>\n      <<\/span>ViewSelectedBy<\/span>>\n        <<\/span>TypeName<\/span>><\/span>Microsoft.Windows.Installer.PackageSource<\/<\/span>TypeName<\/span>>\n      <\/<\/span>ViewSelectedBy<\/span>>\n      <<\/span>GroupBy<\/span>>\n        <<\/span>ScriptBlock<\/span>><![CDATA[\n<\/span>          if ($_.ProductCode -ne $null)\n          {\n            $_.ProductCode\n          }\n          elseif ($_.PatchCode -ne $null)\n          {\n            $_.PatchCode\n          }\n        <\/span>]]><\/<\/span>ScriptBlock<\/span>>\n        <<\/span>CustomControlName<\/span>><\/span>PatchOrProductGrouping<\/<\/span>CustomControlName<\/span>>\n      <\/<\/span>GroupBy<\/span>>\n      <<\/span>TableControl<\/span>><\/span>\n        <!--<\/span> Omitted for brevity <\/span>-->\n      <\/<\/span>TableControl<\/span>>\n    <\/<\/span>View<\/span>>\n  <\/<\/span>ViewDefinitions<\/span>>\n<\/<\/span>Configuration<\/span>><\/span><\/pre>\n
Hopefully this serves as a good example of more powerful features of formatting in PowerShell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For my Windows Installer PowerShell Extensions, I’ve been simplifying some of the use cases and adding additional formats. One thing I wanted to do was display source list information in a table and group either by the attached ProductCode or PatchCode properties. The format-table cmdlet doesn’t support multiple properties and doesn’t appear to allow you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":3843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,39],"class_list":["post-1123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-powershell","tag-tip"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
For my Windows Installer PowerShell Extensions, I’ve been simplifying some of the use cases and adding additional formats. One thing I wanted to do was display source list information in a table and group either by the attached ProductCode or PatchCode properties. The format-table cmdlet doesn’t support multiple properties and doesn’t appear to allow you […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}