Results from Powershell to Comma Separated String

Question

I have the below script that I run, how can I get the output to be placed into a comma separated string?

Get-ADGroup -filter * -properties GroupCategory | ft objectguid, samaccountname

Current Output

objectguid                                                  samaccountname
----------                                                  --------------
f5b71a40-9405-4874-b9b0-b35e45346f63                        WinRMRemoteWMIUsers__
95a99aa1-a771-4f86-bdce-7a6a3f00057a                        Administrators
6a6ad877-180c-462b-9672-bfba20200cda                        Users
038b03cf-1171-4546-b0af-a7654823e289                        Guests
ed3995ae-6f77-492f-bcb5-bc197fa24996                        Print Operators
b1f8301a-78e1-47ab-9e51-8e55525acadf                        Backup Operators
3d23c4c0-71d9-4e08-a8ee-a9692a6ed61f                        Replicator
d86e5619-5893-41b7-b3a8-eda4c2725562                        Remote Desktop Users
473592e4-71c8-458f-b7fc-b474809933ff                        Network Configuration Operators
c433a049-f9e5-404a-9940-5cf1f8ce4d82                        Performance Monitor Users
1ce2daf3-5d97-4493-9ec1-c84a49326113                        Performance Log Users
24b06a4c-f32b-4081-a002-6f1851f98256                        Distributed COM Users

Desired Output

f5b71a40-9405-4874-b9b0-b35e45346f63,WinRMRemoteWMIUsers__,95a99aa1-a771-4f86-bdce-7a6a3f00057a,Administrators,6a6ad877-180c-462b-9672-bfba20200cda,Users,038b03cf-1171-4546-b0af-a7654823e289,Guests,ed3995ae-6f77-492f-bcb5-bc197fa24996,Print Operators,b1f8301a-78e1-47ab-9e51-8e55525acadf,Backup Operators,3d23c4c0-71d9-4e08-a8ee-a9692a6ed61f,Replicator,d86e5619-5893-41b7-b3a8-eda4c2725562,Remote Desktop Users,473592e4-71c8-458f-b7fc-b474809933ff,Network Configuration Operators,c433a049-f9e5-404a-9940-5cf1f8ce4d82,Performance Monitor Users,1ce2daf3-5d97-4493-9ec1-c84a49326113,Performance Log Users,24b06a4c-f32b-4081-a002-6f1851f98256,Distributed COM Users

I am sending this as data to a url that will parse the data remotely using JavaScript, so I want a string rather than a file.

Chilson

Answer 1

That's fairly easy and consists of two steps: First separating the GUID and account name with a comma:

$items = Get-ADGroup -filter * -properties GroupCategory |
  select objectguid,samaccountname
$combined = $items |
  ForEach-Object { $_.objectguid + ',' + $_.samaccountname }

and then joining all those strings with a comma into a single string:

$result = $combined -join ','

We could also do it differently: First decompose the objects into simply two strings:

$separated = $items | % { $_.objectguid; $_.samaccountname }

and then joining all those with a comma:

$result = $separated -join ','

or take advantage of the $OFS variable which specifies with what separator arrays are converted to strings. Same start, we need a single array with everything that should be joined with a comma, and then we set the $OFS variable and convert the array to a string:

$OFS = ','
$result = [string] $separated

Decahedron

No way to do this on single command, bro? – Plath

Remember to set $OFS back to its default value : Remove-Variable OFS See doc : learn.microsoft.com/fr-fr/powershell/module/… – Mellifluous

Answer 2

I feel like the easiest method would be to use the static Join method
public static string Join (char separator, params object?[] values);

You can use it like this :

PS D:\Powershell> [string]::Join(", ", @("a","b","c"))
a, b, c

PS D:\Powershell> [string]::Join("+", @("a", "b", "c", "d", "e"))
a+b+c+d+e

The method is pretty flexible, here is the doc : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.string.join

Mellifluous