[SOLVED] Work with ADComputer output in foreach loop

Work with ADComputer output in foreach loop

I want to output all hostnames within a network first with a foreach loop, in order (for example) to be able to ping them.

However with the following code I do not get any output in the console. The CSV file will be saved, but what is written in the loop will not be executed.

Does anyone know what the reason for this is and how I can solve it?

Import-Module activedirectory
Get-ADComputer -Filter * -Property * | Select Name | Export-CSV -Path $env:TEMP\ZZZEXPORTE.csv -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8 | ForEach {

    $computerName = $_.Name
    Write-Host $computerName
    Write-Host "----"
}

Solution

This occurs because Export-CSV does not output an object. Sometimes cmdlets like this have a -PassThru parameter which you can use to have an object passed along, but thats not the case with Export-CSV, they simply expect it to always be the last cmdlet in the pipeline.

You should instead do this:

$Computers = Get-ADComputer -Filter * -Property * | Select Name
$Computers | Export-CSV -Path $env:TEMP\ZZZEXPORTE.csv -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8 

$Computers | ForEach {
    $computerName = $_.Name
    Write-Host $computerName
    Write-Host "----"
}

You could also do this:

Get-ADComputer -Filter * -Property * | Select Name | ForEach {
    $computerName = $_.Name
    Write-Host $computerName
    Write-Host "----"
    $_
} | Export-CSV -Path $env:TEMP\ZZZEXPORTE.csv -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8

Noting that we have to add $_ to our ForEach-Object loop so that it outputs the current item to the pipeline, but that our Write-Host statements don't effect the pipeline because they are writing to the console only. To be honest though, this is a bit harder to follow for anyone else reading your code.