Vista - Logon script - function array and select case not working

Hi all,

I am trying to rewrite my logon scripts which are all in vbscript. the
scripts are written in a framework model, eg: control script,hashtable
script and subscripts which are for each group.

the hash table, has all the names, and server paths, and all the
scripts use those names from the central hash table (via an include
function) (this is so if server name changes i just change the path in the
hash table)


this all works well, except, the function i am using for the rules in the
control script causes alot of querrys to AD. as there are alot of groups.

so my thinking was have a function dump all the groups into an array, pass
the array to a select case and fire off the subscripts inside the case
statement. (there are more the 60 groups is there a limit to case?

here is what i have:


/code

dim dataarray()
dim data
dim retrv
dim obj



set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set objTSout = objFSO.CreateTextFile(".\loglinfunction.txt", true)
set objTSout2 = objFSO.CreateTextFile(".\logoutfunction.txt", true)
set objTSout3 = objFSO.CreateTextFile(".\top.txt", true)
set objTSout4 = objFSO.CreateTextFile(".\logarrayfunction.txt", true)

objTSout.writeline retrv
retrv = checkgrp

'for each obj in retrv
Select Case retrv
Case "group name here" wscript.echo "ok"
Case "green" document.bgColor = "green"
Case "blue" document.bgColor = "blue"
'Case Else MsgBox "pick another color"
End Select
'next


private function checkgrp()
'dim dataarray()
'dim data


On Error Resume Next
Set objADSysInfo = CreateObject("ADSystemInfo")
strUser = objADSysInfo.UserName
Set objUser = GetObject("LDAP://" & strUser)
For Each strGroup in objUser.memberOf
Set objGroup = GetObject("LDAP://" & strGroup)
'Wscript.Echo objGroup.CN
redim Preserve dataarray(data)
dataarray(data) = objGroup.CN
retrv = dataarray(data)


'wscript.echo dataarray(data)


'objTSout.writeline dataarray(data)
'objTSout.writeline checkgrp

Next




'objTSout2.writeline dataarray()
objTSout2.writeline retrv
objTSout4.writeline dataarray(data)

'wscript.echo strname


end function
wscript.echo "script has finished running"


/end code

"Nex6" <Nex6@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:alpine.WNT.2.00.0906091532310.6772@xxxxxxIn my experience, testing group membership is expensive, no matter how you
try to do it.
How have you determined that this will be faster or result in fewer trips to
the domain?
I am unaware of any limit to the number of cases in a select case block...
what value are you expecting this statement to write into the file, given
that retrv has yet to be assigned a value?
what value are you expecting this will assign to retrv?
The above will do one of three actions depending on the value of retrv being
either "group name here", "green", or "blue". If retrv is anything else,
nothing will happen.

When you run this, what happens? I expect nothing as noted in my comment
just after the end function statement...

Also, where is the document object defined?
where does "data" get its value from?
Assigning a value from within a function to a global variable is not a good
idea.
Since no value has been assigned to the name of the function, the value
returned has nothing to do with anything the function has done.
Neither the intent nor the execution of the code is clear to me. Since it
contains numerous errors, I am wondering why you think it is the function
and select case statements themselves that are responsible rather than your
code.

/Al

This, is really the first time I tryed to mess with arrays and select
case, I do a fair amount of scripting but nothing with case and arrays. i
used a dicionary object but that was it.



On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Al Dunbar wrote:
becuase the current product script, is based like so:

if ismember "groupname" then
obj.run "\\ad\sysvol\~\subscriptdept.vbs
end if

only alot of them... like about 50 or 60, so every querry is a call to AD.
thats too much, i want/need to cut that down.

this is debug stuff, so I can see the vaules at that point in the script,
infact all the writelines are just for debugging to help me see output.
here is am trying to get the array into something i can use in the select
case. I have been playing with it alot, so some things may be messy

yup, nothing happens, which i know becuase i am outputing everything at
each stage to files for me to look at.

nothing, becuase the arrays data never leaves the for loop in the
function.
hunh?

below, i am trying to have a dynamic array, becuase this is polling group
member ship and everyone will be different.


i know, i was trying diffeent things to get it to work, notice the
commented out at the top of the function.
i tryed doing things like checkgrp = arrayname, but it still does not
work. so i , after google and nothing, basicly am trying everything I can
think of. but since i never really played with arrays that much, and
passing data from an array in a function seems to be a black art in
vbscript....



object, in the function get the array populted with the user who runs it,
with all the groups. then, the select case, would be formated like so:

select case
case script_department.vbs
end case

only like 60 cases. then those subscript, are the real login scripts for
the users. and, those subscripts, i have an inlcude function the pulls a
hashtable with everything they need to map all the drivers etc.


hope this clears it up some.

I like to use Dictionary Objects when I must bind to many objects, and I
want to avoid binding to the same object repeatedly. However, I don't see
where that can happen when you are dealing with only one user. In the
snippet I posted earlier, I bind to every group the user is a direct member
of (except the "Primary" group, Domain Users). The Groups method of the user
object returns a collection of object references, one for each group, so a
lot of binding happens. If you are going to test membership in just a few
groups, it would be more efficient to instead bind to the group objects and
use the IsMember method of the group object. I'm not sure what you really
want to do, but if this helps, the code would be similar to:
=========
Option Explicit
Dim objSysInfo, strUser, objUser, objGroup

Set objSysInfo = CreateObject("ADSystemInfo")
strUser objSysInfo.UserName)
Set objUser = GetObject("LDAP://" & strUser)

' Check membership in Group A. First bind to the group object.
Set objGroup = GetObject("LDAP://cn=Group A,ou=West,dc=MyDomain,dc=com")
If (objGroup.IsMember(objUser.AdsPath) = True) Then
' User is a member of the group, do something.
End If

' Check membership in Group B. First bind to the group object.
Set objGroup = GetObject("LDAP://cn=Group B,ou=West,dc=MyDomain,dc=com")
If (objGroup.IsMember(objUser.AdsPath) = True) Then
' User is a member of the group, do something.
End If
======
I like to use Option Explicit and Dim all variables, as it makes
troubleshooting much easier. This is especially important in logon scripts,
where typos can cause havoc.

If the average user is a member of 5 groups and you want to check membership
in 3, the above is more efficient. However, the difference could not be
measured. If you need to check membership in 10 groups, the previous snippet
would make more sense, but again, I doubt it would make a measurable
difference. Also, so far I see no value to using functions or subroutines.

--
Richard Mueller
MVP Directory Services
Hilltop Lab - http://www.rlmueller.net
--

"Nex6" <Nex6@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:alpine.WNT.2.00.0906091721360.8168@xxxxxx

"Nex6" <Nex6@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:alpine.WNT.2.00.0906091721360.8168@xxxxxx

"Nex6" <Nex6@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:alpine.WNT.2.00.0906091721360.8168@xxxxxxThat is not vbscript code, so I cannot tell if "ismember" is a vbscript
function or perhaps a resource kit executable...

For our logon script I developed a function that combined recursive calls to
itself to deal with group nesting but it used ismember.exe to test
membership in each group encountered. Once it determined whether or not user
"X" was a member of group "Y", it kept that info in a dictionary object so
the next time it had to test that same group it avoided the ismember.exe
call.

I tried about seven different versions, each using a different "is this user
a member of this group" logic, and picked the one that performed the best.
In the process I found that the first use of ismember.exe takes the longest
time, such that subsequent uses are a lot faster. I think that is because it
also caches its results somehow.
I kind of guessed it was debug output. But the question remains: why display
the value of a variable that has not yet been assigned any value? Is this
perhaps because you have shown only a representative sample of your script?
So if you think that this will assign an array value to the variable, how do
you think the case select statement is going go compare this array value
(i.e. an array of individual values) with the literal string values such as
"group name here"? IMHO, CASE SELECT, like IF, can only work with scalar
values, not arrays.
But of course nothing happens. That is because retrv does NOT contain any of
the three string values attached to the CASE statements.
That may be true. However, by not assigning ANY value to checkgrp in the
function, you are guaranteeing that, should the function ever exit, it will
return no information.
You have a statement like this:

Case "green" document.bgColor = "green"

The only meaning I take from this is that a variable named "document "
contains a reference to an object having a property called "bgColor. Since
no value is assigned to this variable, the statement, if executed, will
execute in error.

Now, such a variable could be created automatically in some environments,
but a logon script is usually implemented as a .vbs or .wsf script where
this is not the case.
I understood what you were trying to do, incrementally increase the
dimension of an array. But when that REDIM statement is executed, the
variable called "data" *MUST* contain in integer value equal to the new size
of the array. Your script does not assign any value to this variable.
I understand "trying different things", but you should really restrict
yourself to trying only one of them at a time. That said, I can think of no
good reason to *EVER* assign a value directly from within a function to the
global variable to which the result of the function is being assigned. If
this is the type of thing you are trying, it leads me to believe that you
have yet to get a good overall grasp on the language.
You don't want to pass data from an array in a function; you want to pass an
entire array back to the calling routine from the function. No blackness to
this art at all, here is a simple example:

a = "asdf"
wscript.echo typename(a)
wscript.echo vartype(a)
a = makearray()
wscript.echo typename(a)
wscript.echo vartype(a)

function makearray()
dim av(),ix
for ix = 0 to 3
redim av(ix)
av(ix) = ix
next
makearray = av
end function

Of course, there is a simpler way to do the same thing in this particular
case. Just delete the function and replace this line:

a = makearray()

with this one:

a = array(0,1,2,3)

In your case, the difficulty is in figuring out what information to put into
the array elements. Richard made some good suggestions in that direction.
Syntactically, this is incorrect, and doesn't come anywhere near what you
actually want, which, as I understand you, might look more like this:

for each group in list_of_group_names
select case group ' not select case
case "finance" : include "script_finance.vbs" ' literal strings
need to be quoted
case "HR" : include "script_HR.vbs"
case "IT" : include "script_IT.vbs"
end SELECT ' not end case
next

In English: for each group the user is a member of, execute the script
associated.

If this is basically what you are doing, you might be able to get rid of the
select case statement altogether. But this will require that the group names
consist of only valid filename characters. Here's how:

for each group in list_of_group_names
vbsname = "script_" & group & ".vbs"
if FSO.fileexist( vbsname ) then
include vbsname
end if
next

Note: this assumes that FSO contains a file system object.

Alternately, you could have a dictionary object where the key is the group
name (which could then be the DN or the sAMAccountName), and the value is
the name of the associated script. Here's how:

set vbsnames = createobject("scripting.dictionaryobject")
vbsnames("dn=cn=dept\: Finance") =
"\\finance_server\scripts\finance-logonscript.vbs"
vbsnames("dn=cn=IT guys") = "\\common_server\logonscripts\geeksRus.vbs"
etc...

for each group in list_of_group_names
if vbsnames( lcase(group) ).exist then
include vbsnames( lcase(group) )
end if
next
That is pretty much what I expected. One observation, though; I suspect you
may have made this more complicated than really necessary.

/Al

I received a copy of your post below as a personal e-mail. When I replied to
ask that you keep the discussion in the group because it serves no purpose
to have a private discussion, my e-mail to you bounced because the email
address you supplied was not valid.

Please stop this practice.


/Al


"Nex6" <Nex6@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:alpine.WNT.2.00.0906091721360.8168@xxxxxx