Hey all,

I'm trying to get a handle on some basic scripts I'm using to monitor
our systems. I can get them "functioning" correctly, but a number of
them aren't pretty. The problem seems to be that the first time a pipe
terminates within a loop, headers are written to the output. This is
fine as long as I'm adding any other text within the loop before the
first pipe output is dumped.

-Do I need to strip off the table headers somehow and manually write
them out before entering the loop (which seems counter-intuitive, as I'd
have to manually re-write the headers any time I changed the output
fields I'm looking for)?



....or...

-Is there something simple I'm missing to get my text in under the
header but before the data?

An example script is attached (it checks Exchange queues, so you'll need
appropriate security access to an Exchange 2003 server if you plan to
run it). If you run it against more than one server, it puts the first
server name above the header list. For more complex stuff, that means I
have to "doctor" the output before sending it to anyone, which is
starting to get kind of irritating. :S

--Jonathan "smthng" Kalmes
http://smthng.info

#---Begin PS Script------
#If you want to use a text file for server names,
#just uncomment the next line and comment the one after that.

#$computers = Get-Content c:\scripts\servers.txt
$computers = "Server1","Server2","Server3"
Foreach ($objItem in $computers){
Write-host $objItem -foregroundcolor Cyan
Get-wmiobject -class exchange_SMTPQueue -Namespace `
ROOT\MicrosoftExchangev2 -ComputerName $objItem | `
Select-Object LinkName,QueueName,MessageCount,Size | `
Where-Object -FilterScript {$_.MessageCount -ne 0} | `
Sort-Object QueueName
}
Read-Host -prompt "Press <Enter> to close:"
#-------End PS Script--------

If you're just trying to make it look nicer you can add

| ft

at the end of the Get-WmiObject statement, after the sort. It won't get the
server's entry to look like the subsequent entries, but it will get the
subsequent entries to look like the first one.

#---Begin PS Script------
#If you want to use a text file for server names,
#just uncomment the next line and comment the one after that.

#$computers = Get-Content c:\scripts\servers.txt
$computers = "Server1","Server2","Server3"
Foreach ($objItem in $computers){
Write-host $objItem -foregroundcolor Cyan
Get-wmiobject -class exchange_SMTPQueue -Namespace `
ROOT\MicrosoftExchangev2 -ComputerName $objItem | `
Select-Object LinkName,QueueName,MessageCount,Size | `
Where-Object -FilterScript {$_.MessageCount -ne 0} | `
Sort-Object QueueName | ft
}
Read-Host -prompt "Press <Enter> to close:"
#-------End PS Script--------


"Jonathan Kalmes" wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> I'm trying to get a handle on some basic scripts I'm using to monitor
> our systems. I can get them "functioning" correctly, but a number of
> them aren't pretty. The problem seems to be that the first time a pipe
> terminates within a loop, headers are written to the output. This is
> fine as long as I'm adding any other text within the loop before the
> first pipe output is dumped.
>
> -Do I need to strip off the table headers somehow and manually write
> them out before entering the loop (which seems counter-intuitive, as I'd
> have to manually re-write the headers any time I changed the output
> fields I'm looking for)?
>
> ....or...
>
> -Is there something simple I'm missing to get my text in under the
> header but before the data?
>
> An example script is attached (it checks Exchange queues, so you'll need
> appropriate security access to an Exchange 2003 server if you plan to
> run it). If you run it against more than one server, it puts the first
> server name above the header list. For more complex stuff, that means I
> have to "doctor" the output before sending it to anyone, which is
> starting to get kind of irritating. :S
>
> --Jonathan "smthng" Kalmes
> http://smthng.info
>
> #---Begin PS Script------
> #If you want to use a text file for server names,
> #just uncomment the next line and comment the one after that.
>
> #$computers = Get-Content c:\scripts\servers.txt
> $computers = "Server1","Server2","Server3"
> Foreach ($objItem in $computers){
> Write-host $objItem -foregroundcolor Cyan
> Get-wmiobject -class exchange_SMTPQueue -Namespace `
> ROOT\MicrosoftExchangev2 -ComputerName $objItem | `
> Select-Object LinkName,QueueName,MessageCount,Size | `
> Where-Object -FilterScript {$_.MessageCount -ne 0} | `
> Sort-Object QueueName
> }
> Read-Host -prompt "Press <Enter> to close:"
> #-------End PS Script--------
>

Rob's right, but that's not what I'm looking for either. Slapping a
Format-Table on the end of the get-wmiobject statement did indeed add
column headers to each group of server output. I knew that wasn't what
I was looking for, but it got me thinking so I fiddled a bit and tried
Format-Table -hideTableHeaders instead. That got rid of the initial
header in my output, but also added blank lines all over the place.
What's up with that? Here's my output if I don't pipe into any kind of
Format-cmdlet ( stripped the last column so it would fit):

SERVER1

LinkName QueueName MessageCount
-------- --------- ------------
SERVER10.WAS.INT... SERVER10.WAS.INT... 6
SERVER2
DeferredDelivery... DeferredDelivery... 7
SERVER10.WAS.INT... SERVER10.WAS.INT... 1
SERVER3
SERVER10.WAS.INT... SERVER10.WAS.INT... 1
<snip>
Press <Enter> to close::

Reasonably decent other than the one odd header. That's specifying no
formatting other than having the Select-object spec out only 4 fields.
But...

If I try to change the formatting at all by using the format-table
cmdlet, it makes it worse by padding out the entire list with blank
lines, even if I'm using the -hideTableHeaders. So, I guess that leaves
me with three questions....

Where's the header coming from in my original code and why is it only
happening once?

Why does Format-table add extra lines (CRs) even with the
-hideTableHeaders param?

Is there any way for me to do this kind of process without sending all
the values to an array first and then parsing the array? I'm trying to
avoid this, because that kind of defeats the purpose of piping the
objects in the first place.

Sorry to beat this to death, but I generate these kinds of quick status
tables ALL the time... this one is just one example. I really would
like to get this working... it'll fix 10 other scripts I've got just
like it and help me understand how PoSH deals with output.

--Jonathan "smthng" Kalmes
http://smthng.info

Rob Campbell wrote:
> If you're just trying to make it look nicer you can add
>
> | ft
>
> at the end of the Get-WmiObject statement, after the sort. It won't get the
> server's entry to look like the subsequent entries, but it will get the
> subsequent entries to look like the first one.