PowerShell: how to populate hashtable automatically from get-aduser [duplicate] - windows

Question

What is the easiest way to convert a PSCustomObject to a Hashtable? It displays just like one with the splat operator, curly braces and what appear to be key value pairs. When I try to cast it to [Hashtable] it doesn't work. I also tried .toString() and the assigned variable says its a string but displays nothing - any ideas?

Answer 1

Shouldn't be too hard. Something like this should do the trick:
# Create a PSCustomObject (ironically using a hashtable)
$ht1 = #{ A = 'a'; B = 'b'; DateTime = Get-Date }
$theObject = new-object psobject -Property $ht1
# Convert the PSCustomObject back to a hashtable
$ht2 = #{}
$theObject.psobject.properties | Foreach { $ht2[$_.Name] = $_.Value }

Answer 2

Keith already gave you the answer, this is just another way of doing the same with a one-liner:
$psobject.psobject.properties | foreach -begin {$h=#{}} -process {$h."$($_.Name)" = $_.Value} -end {$h}

Answer 3

Here's a version that works with nested hashtables / arrays as well (which is useful if you're trying to do this with DSC ConfigurationData):
function ConvertPSObjectToHashtable
{
param (
[Parameter(ValueFromPipeline)]
$InputObject
)
process
{
if ($null -eq $InputObject) { return $null }
if ($InputObject -is [System.Collections.IEnumerable] -and $InputObject -isnot [string])
{
$collection = #(
foreach ($object in $InputObject) { ConvertPSObjectToHashtable $object }
)
Write-Output -NoEnumerate $collection
}
elseif ($InputObject -is [psobject])
{
$hash = #{}
foreach ($property in $InputObject.PSObject.Properties)
{
$hash[$property.Name] = ConvertPSObjectToHashtable $property.Value
}
$hash
}
else
{
$InputObject
}
}
}

Answer 4

My extremely lazy approach, enabled by a new feature in PowerShell 6:
$myhashtable = $mypscustomobject | ConvertTo-Json | ConvertFrom-Json -AsHashTable

Answer 5

This works for PSCustomObjects created by ConvertFrom_Json.
Function ConvertConvertFrom-JsonPSCustomObjectToHash($obj)
{
$hash = #{}
$obj | Get-Member -MemberType Properties | SELECT -exp "Name" | % {
$hash[$_] = ($obj | SELECT -exp $_)
}
$hash
}
Disclaimer: I barely understand PowerShell so this is probably not as clean as it could be. But it works (for one level only).

Answer 6

My code:
function PSCustomObjectConvertToHashtable() {
param(
[Parameter(ValueFromPipeline)]
$object
)
if ( $object -eq $null ) { return $null }
if ( $object -is [psobject] ) {
$result = #{}
$items = $object | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty
foreach( $item in $items ) {
$key = $item.Name
$value = PSCustomObjectConvertToHashtable -object $object.$key
$result.Add($key, $value)
}
return $result
} elseif ($object -is [array]) {
$result = [object[]]::new($object.Count)
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $object.Count; $i++) {
$result[$i] = (PSCustomObjectConvertToHashtable -object $object[$i])
}
return ,$result
} else {
return $object
}
}

Answer 7

For simple [PSCustomObject] to [Hashtable] conversion Keith's Answer works best.
However if you need more options you can use
function ConvertTo-Hashtable {
<#
.Synopsis
Converts an object to a hashtable
.DESCRIPTION
PowerShell v4 seems to have trouble casting some objects to Hashtable.
This function is a workaround to convert PS Objects to [Hashtable]
.LINK
https://github.com/alainQtec/.files/blob/main/src/scripts/Converters/ConvertTo-Hashtable.ps1
.NOTES
Base ref: https://community.idera.com/database-tools/powershell/powertips/b/tips/posts/turning-objects-into-hash-tables-2
#>
PARAM(
# The object to convert to a hashtable
[Parameter(ValueFromPipeline = $true, Mandatory = $true)]
$InputObject,
# Forces the values to be strings and converts them by running them through Out-String
[switch]$AsString,
# If set, empty properties are Included
[switch]$AllowNulls,
# Make each hashtable to have it's own set of properties, otherwise,
# (default) each InputObject is normalized to the properties on the first object in the pipeline
[switch]$DontNormalize
)
BEGIN {
$headers = #()
}
PROCESS {
if (!$headers -or $DontNormalize) {
$headers = $InputObject | Get-Member -type Properties | Select-Object -expand name
}
$OutputHash = #{}
if ($AsString) {
foreach ($col in $headers) {
if ($AllowNulls -or ($InputObject.$col -is [bool] -or ($InputObject.$col))) {
$OutputHash.$col = $InputObject.$col | Out-String -Width 9999 | ForEach-Object { $_.Trim() }
}
}
} else {
foreach ($col in $headers) {
if ($AllowNulls -or ($InputObject.$col -is [bool] -or ($InputObject.$col))) {
$OutputHash.$col = $InputObject.$col
}
}
}
}
END {
return $OutputHash
}
}
Maybe this is overkill but I hope it Helps

Answer 8

Today, the "easiest way" to convert PSCustomObject to Hashtable would be so:
$custom_obj | ConvertTo-HashtableFromPsCustomObject
OR
[hashtable]$custom_obj
Conversely, you can convert a Hashtable to PSCustomObject using:
[PSCustomObject]$hash_table
Only snag is, these nifty options may not be available in older versions of PS