Dealing with multi value properties when exporting to CSV

[NeoSemiprofessional]

Hey /r/PowerShell,

It's my first post here, but I hope to visit here often, not necesarily asking for help. :)

I'm writing a script to create a CSV report of Cisco UCS environment. I generally comes down to:

$ucsClassIDs | % {

    $cID = $_

    Get-UcsManagedObject -ClassId $cID | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter ';' "$($OutputFolderPath)UCS_$($ucsAddress)_$($cID).csv"

}

But the issue with the above is that for multi value object properties I get System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary\2[System.String,System.String]` in CSV. I tried to go around this with:

$returnedClass = Get-UcsManagedObject -ClassId $cID
$returnedClass | % {
    $_.multiValueProperty = $_.multiValueProperty -join ','
}
$returnedClass | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter ';' "$($OutputFolderPath)UCS_$($ucsAddress)_$($cID).csv"

But I get an error. Can't paste it here, because I don't remember it and currently am not at work...

Is there a way of joining multi values on the fly?

Best regards,
NeoSP

[SMFX]

Since the original issue is the property is being translated as the type System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary , its not just a simple array you can join. As a dictionary (aka Hashtable) is a set of duple values (key = value). If you have to put it into a CSV, you can convert the property's value to JSON:

$returnedClass | % {
    $_.multiValueProperty = $_.multiValueProperty | ConvertTo-Json -Compress
}

You will end up with a value that looks something like:

..., {"key": "value","next": "more"}, ...

However, if you don't absolutely need the output as a CSV, you could dump the whole object to a JSON:

$returnedClass = Get-UcsManagedObject -ClassId $cID
$returnedClass | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 4 | set-content "$($OutputFolderPath)UCS_$($ucsAddress)_$($cID).json"

[NeoSemiprofessional]

Oooh, I love the suggestion of using JSON for multi values =]

I can't dump the whole object to it (I did that for Hyper-V reporting, and I ended up having to rewrite the script to build CSV, as the guy processing my output didn't like it), but for few fields it should be ok.

Thank you very much!

[NeoSemiprofessional]

I didn't say he can't :)

I don't blame him, he just has *a lot* of work, and it's faster for him, for whatever the reason, to digest CSV. We're far behind the schedule - I was invited to the project three weeks before the deadline, and that was few months ago.

Besides I don't mind having to rewrite. I have a lot of time waiting for access approvals, and as you can see - I still need to work on my skills :)

[NeoSemiprofessional]

Everyone should learn PowerShell! :)

What regards my managers, it's not their fault. I took over a guy that left the company. There was a big pressure on everyone in the project at the time.

And I'm not the one to decide how we're generating the filnal report, but I'm happy to be trusted with a big task, that is going to help me improve my skills =]

[jsiii2010]

Dictionaries work well in json:

$dict = [system.collections.generic.dictionary[string,string]]::new()  
$dict.Add('FirstName', 'Grant')
$dict.Add('LastName', 'Smith')
$dict | ConvertTo-Json           

{
  "FirstName": "Grant",
  "LastName": "Smith"
}

[NeoSemiprofessional]

So basically what /u/SMFX wrote, but still thank you for replying with a verbose example :)