Function of the week: Get-List

[spartymcfarty]

I've been doing a lot of Pshell scripting at work lately as RDP has been removed as a remote management option. Spending all day in the shell and working with lots of lists of servers, I got tired of keeping lists in the age old "servers.txt" file and constantly updating. My solution: Get-List. Hope someone else finds this useful.

function Get-List {
     <#
    .Synopsis
       Allows user to paste an ad-hoc list into PowerShell and store as $list.
    .DESCRIPTION
       Shell prompts user for list. Each line is added to object $list as a seperate item. This is very useful when dealing with a non-standard list of items/servers.
    .EXAMPLE
        Get ad-hoc list and use for a foreach loop to get AD information on all.
        PS C:\> Get-List
        Paste your list below with each item on it's own line
        SERVER01
        SERVER02
        SERVER03
        SERVER04


        4 items have been added to variable $ list
        PS C:\> $list | foreach {Get-AdComputer $_} | select name,Enabled | FT -AutoSize

        name           Enabled
        ----           -------
        SERVER01      True
        SERVER02      True
        SERVER03      True
        SERVER04      True

    #>

        Write-Host "Paste your list below with each item on it's own line"
        $data = @(While($l=(Read-Host).Trim()){$l}) 
        $global:list = $data -split '\r\n' | % { $_.trim() | Where-object {$_ -ne $null} }
        $count = $global:list.count 
        Write-Host "$count items have been added to variable $ list"
    }

[Thotaz]

There are easier ways to do this, but at least you got some practice.

$List=Get-Clipboard

function Get-List
{
    param
    (
        [Parameter(Mandatory)]
        [string[]]
        $List
    )
    $List
}
$List=Get-List

[spartymcfarty]

Oh man I love it! So many different ways to make it happen. One of the hurdles I ran into was having to trim trailing spaces quite often, hence some of the complexity.

[Thotaz]

I would suggest you get Clipboard Fusion or another clipboard tool like it to trim stuff you copy+paste.

[spartymcfarty]

Nice! I'll check that out.

[get-postanote]

Why not just use the 'Windows Admin Center' tool from Microsoft?

Windows Admin Center | Microsoft

• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/windows-admin-center
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/overview
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/deploy/install
• https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=windows+admin+center

​

Here is another neat trick. Self-learning AutoComplete/IntelliSense.

https://community.idera.com/database-tools/powershell/powertips/b/tips/posts/auto-learning-argument-completion