Formatting objects in a string

Hi,

I have a list of object which I pipe to a "select" which gets me a
nice format for the console. However, I want to send the info by email
so I would need to format the data in a string. I tried assigning the
result to a variable, if a display the variable in the console it is
fine, but when I send it by email, all I get is the name of formatting
objects.

In message <1186395133.180955.66280@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, olig
<olig@monimap.com> writes
>Hi,
>
>I have a list of object which I pipe to a "select" which gets me a
>nice format for the console. However, I want to send the info by email
>so I would need to format the data in a string. I tried assigning the
>result to a variable, if a display the variable in the console it is
>fine, but when I send it by email, all I get is the name of formatting
>objects.

You can use the -f switch as follows:

PSH [D:\foo]: $x=12; $y=22.234
PSH [D:\foo]: $str = "this is X {0}, and this is y: {1}" -f $x, $y
PSH [D:\foo]: $str
this is X 12, and this is y: 22.234

Is this what you wanted to do??

--
Thomas Lee
doctordns@gmail.com
MVP - Admin Frameworks and Security

On 6 août, 06:38, Thomas Lee <t...@psp.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <1186395133.180955.66...@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, olig
> <o...@monimap.com> writes
>
> >Hi,
>
> >I have a list of object which I pipe to a "select" which gets me a
> >nice format for the console. However, I want to send the info by email
> >so I would need to format the data in a string. I tried assigning the
> >result to a variable, if a display the variable in the console it is
> >fine, but when I send it by email, all I get is the name of formatting
> >objects.
>
> You can use the -f switch as follows:
>
> PSH [D:\foo]: $x=12; $y=22.234
> PSH [D:\foo]: $str = "this is X {0}, and this is y: {1}" -f $x, $y
> PSH [D:\foo]: $str
> this is X 12, and this is y: 22.234
>
> Is this what you wanted to do??
>
> --
> Thomas Lee
> doctor...@gmail.com
> MVP - Admin Frameworks and Security

Thanks for the help, unfortunately,this is not what I am looking for.
I joined my sample script to further clarify what I mean.

#script to calculate size of some directories and send report by email

#list of directories to calculate size
$dirs = @("c:\windows", "c:\temp")
$smtpserver = "127.0.0.1"
$maildest = "email@example.com"

$res = @{}

#calculate the size of each dir and put it in hashtable
foreach ($dir in $dirs)
{
$res[$dir] = gci $dir -recurse | measure-object -property length -sum
}

$body = ($res.keys | select {$_}, {$res."$_".Count}, @{name="Size in
GB";Expression={[System.Math]::Round($res."$_".sum/1073741824,1)}})

# up to this point if I print $body in the console it looks fine
# but if I try to pass the variable as a string to the send function
it doesn't work

$sc = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient -arg $smtpserver
$sc.Send($maildest, $maildest, "Backup information", $body)

Select-Object returns a PSCustomObject:

$body.GetType().fullName
System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject

You can cast it to a string:
[string]$body1 = $body

....pipe it to Out-String:
$body2 = $body | out-string

....use variable expansion notation:
$body3 = "$body"

$body, $body1, $body2, $body3 | % {$_.GetType().fullName}
System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject
System.String
System.String
System.String

In your script you could:

[string]$body = ($res.keys | select {$_}, {$res."$_".Count}, @{name="Size in
GB";Expression={[System.Math]::Round($res."$_".sum/1073741824,1)}})

....or:
$body = ($res.keys | select {$_}, {$res."$_".Count}, @{name="Size in
GB";Expression={[System.Math]::Round($res."$_".sum/1073741824,1)}}) |
Out-String

....or:
$sc.Send($maildest, $maildest, "Backup information", "$body")

--
Kiron