Looping through a hash, or using an array in PowerShell

Question

I'm using this (simplified) chunk of code to extract a set of tables from SQL Server with BCP.

$OutputDirectory = 'c:\junk\'
$ServerOption =   "-SServerName"
$TargetDatabase = "Content.dbo."

$ExtractTables = @(
    "Page"
    , "ChecklistItemCategory"
    , "ChecklistItem"
)

for ($i=0; $i -le $ExtractTables.Length – 1; $i++)  {
    $InputFullTableName = "$TargetDatabase$($ExtractTables[$i])"
    $OutputFullFileName = "$OutputDirectory$($ExtractTables[$i])"
    bcp $InputFullTableName out $OutputFullFileName -T -c $ServerOption
}

It works great, but now some of the tables need to be extracted via views, and some don't. So I need a data structure something like this:

"Page"                      "vExtractPage"
, "ChecklistItemCategory"   "ChecklistItemCategory"
, "ChecklistItem"           "vExtractChecklistItem"

I was looking at hashes, but I'm not finding anything on how to loop through a hash. What would be the right thing to do here? Perhaps just use an array, but with both values, separated by space?

Or am I missing something obvious?

Answer 1

Shorthand is not preferred for scripts; it is less readable. The %{} operator is considered shorthand. Here's how it should be done in a script for readability and reusability:

Variable Setup

PS> $hash = @{
    a = 1
    b = 2
    c = 3
}
PS> $hash

Name                           Value
----                           -----
c                              3
b                              2
a                              1

Option 1: GetEnumerator()

Note: personal preference; syntax is easier to read

The GetEnumerator() method would be done as shown:

foreach ($h in $hash.GetEnumerator()) {
    Write-Host "$($h.Name): $($h.Value)"
}

Output:

c: 3
b: 2
a: 1

Option 2: Keys

The Keys method would be done as shown:

foreach ($h in $hash.Keys) {
    Write-Host "${h}: $($hash.$h)"
}

Output:

c: 3
b: 2
a: 1

Additional information

Be careful sorting your hashtable...

Sort-Object may change it to an array:

PS> $hash.GetType()

IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     True     Hashtable                                System.Object


PS> $hash = $hash.GetEnumerator() | Sort-Object Name
PS> $hash.GetType()

IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     True     Object[]                                 System.Array

---

This and other PowerShell looping are available on my blog.

Answer 2

Christian's answer works well and shows how you can loop through each hash table item using the GetEnumerator method. You can also loop through using the keys property. Here is an example how:

$hash = @{
    a = 1
    b = 2
    c = 3
}
$hash.Keys | % { "key = $_ , value = " + $hash.Item($_) }

Output:

key = c , value = 3
key = a , value = 1
key = b , value = 2

Answer 3

You can also do this without a variable

@{
  'foo' = 222
  'bar' = 333
  'baz' = 444
  'qux' = 555
} | % getEnumerator | % {
  $_.key
  $_.value
}

Answer 4

I prefer this variant on the enumerator method with a pipeline, because you don't have to refer to the hash table in the foreach (tested in PowerShell 5):

$hash = @{
    'a' = 3
    'b' = 2
    'c' = 1
}
$hash.getEnumerator() | foreach {
    Write-Host ("Key = " + $_.key + " and Value = " + $_.value);
}

Output:

Key = c and Value = 1
Key = b and Value = 2
Key = a and Value = 3

Now, this has not been deliberately sorted on value, the enumerator simply returns the objects in reverse order.

But since this is a pipeline, I now can sort the objects received from the enumerator on value:

$hash.getEnumerator() | sort-object -Property value -Desc | foreach {
  Write-Host ("Key = " + $_.key + " and Value = " + $_.value);
}

Output:

Key = a and Value = 3
Key = b and Value = 2
Key = c and Value = 1

Answer 5

Here is another quick way, just using the key as an index into the hash table to get the value:

$hash = @{
    'a' = 1;
    'b' = 2;
    'c' = 3
};

foreach($key in $hash.keys) {
    Write-Host ("Key = " + $key + " and Value = " + $hash[$key]);
}

Answer 6

About looping through a hash:

$Q = @{"ONE"="1";"TWO"="2";"THREE"="3"}
$Q.GETENUMERATOR() | % { $_.VALUE }
1
3
2

$Q.GETENUMERATOR() | % { $_.key }
ONE
THREE
TWO

Answer 7

A short traverse could be given too using the sub-expression operator $( ), which returns the result of one or more statements.

$hash = @{ a = 1; b = 2; c = 3}

forEach($y in $hash.Keys){
    Write-Host "$y -> $($hash[$y])"
}

Result:

a -> 1
b -> 2
c -> 3

Answer 8

If you're using PowerShell v3, you can use JSON instead of a hashtable, and convert it to an object with Convert-FromJson:

@'
[
    {
        FileName = "Page";
        ObjectName = "vExtractPage";
    },
    {
        ObjectName = "ChecklistItemCategory";
    },
    {
        ObjectName = "ChecklistItem";
    },
]
'@ | 
    Convert-FromJson |
    ForEach-Object {
        $InputFullTableName = '{0}{1}' -f $TargetDatabase,$_.ObjectName

        # In strict mode, you can't reference a property that doesn't exist, 
        #so check if it has an explicit filename firest.
        $outputFileName = $_.ObjectName
        if( $_ | Get-Member FileName )
        {
            $outputFileName = $_.FileName
        }
        $OutputFullFileName = Join-Path $OutputDirectory $outputFileName

        bcp $InputFullTableName out $OutputFullFileName -T -c $ServerOption
    }