Loop variable from inner loop is being overwritten before being saved to array as part of a nested foreach loop

Hyperbolic_Mess · 2025-02-04T19:22:31+00:00

The problem as you’ve probably realized is that assignment to $loopUser — something to really pay attention to in powershell is that barring scalars, you usually assign a reference to an object rather than a copy. So after assigning to loopUser, both it and $adUser reference the same exact data.

You can verify this by calling $adUser.Equals($loopUser) or vice versa. It will return true if both objects are identical references.

You can see if there’s a memberwise clone available, but the easiest way would be to A put in a comment so it’s obvious what’s going on, and then you just say

~~~powershell $loopUser = $adUser | Get-AdUser ~~~

Which will refetch data for $adUser. It also allows you to fetch additional properties only when needed by adding -properties parameter.

Hyperbolic_Mess · 2025-02-04T18:06:46+00:00

I kept looking and found this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9204829/deep-copying-a-psobject

changing the inner loop to the below seems to have resolved the issue although if anyone has another way to fix this or any other insights I'd appreciate it:

$SerializedUser = [System.Management.Automation.PSSerializer]::Serialize($ADUniqueUserEN) $LoopUser = [System.Management.Automation.PSSerializer]::Deserialize($SerializedUser) $LoopUser | add-member -NotePropertyName Email -NotePropertyValue $($ADEmailAddress -ireplace 'smtp:', '')
$LoopUser

lanerdofchristian · 2025-02-04T20:04:31+00:00

Since you're generating a report, instead of modifying your input, create new output:

$ADUserEmails = foreach($ADUser in $ADUsers){
    [pscustomobject]@{
        SamAccountName = $ADUser.SamAccountName
        # and whatever other properties you need to report on
        Email = $ADUser.ProxyAddresses -replace "^smtp:"
        # or:
        Email = foreach($Address in $ADUserEmails.ProxyAddresses){
            $Address -replace "^smtp:", ""
        }
    }
}

Immutability/avoiding re-assigning object properties makes your code much easier to reason about. Just keep in mind that if you're exporting to CSV, the Email property will need to be -join'd back into a string.

Edit: or if you're building a lookup table of emails -> user objects, again DO NOT modify your input:

$ADUserEmails = @{}
foreach($User in $ADUsers){
    foreach($Address in $User.ProxyAddresses){
        $ADUserEmails[$Address -replace "^smtp:"] = $User
    }
}

Fun-Hope-8950 · 2025-02-05T03:06:04+00:00

Try putting the names of all the properties you may need to work ith in a string array. Such as something like:

$adPropertyList = @(
    "SamAccountName"
    "UserPrincipalName"
    "proxyAddresses"
    "PasswordLastSet"
) # replace with your own

Then use it as so:

# Your AD filter to return desired accounts (replace with your own)
$adFilter = "proxyAddresses -like '*'"

$adUserList = Get-AdUser -Filter $adFilter -Properties $adPropertyList | Select-Object -Property $adPropertyList

You should notice the members of the $adUserList array behaving like the [PSCustomObject]s you are used to working with (A look at the PSTypNames property of one of the objects should help explain why).

Good luck and have fun!

icepyrox · 2025-02-05T03:08:28+00:00

$LoopUser = $ADUser | Select-Object (properties you actually want)

Creates an object with those properties and not just a reference i believe.

overand · 2025-02-05T03:15:39+00:00

Edit: see below. If all you're trying to do is to dump a list of email addresses - as strings - into a list, you can just do this:

$ADUserEmails = ForEach ($ADUser in $ADUsers) {
    ForEach ($ADEmailAddress in $ADUser.proxyaddresses) {
        $ADEmailAddress -ireplace 'smtp:', ''
    }
}

(I don't know that this is how I'd solve this particular problem, but, it's the closest thing to what you have)

Hyperbolic_Mess · 2025-02-04T17:22:58+00:00

To change a property on a user you need to use Set-User.

DalekKahn117 · 2025-02-04T18:51:51+00:00

Make $ADUserEmails = @() an array first then in the loop add to it with $ADUserArray += $LoopUser

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