PowerShell function output

Question

I have a PowerShell script that calls a function and sets the results of the function to a variable. Within the function, I am using the $variable | ft to display the contents of a variable in a table and asking the user to select a number that corresponds to the row in the table they want to act on. I am then returning this variable to the object that called the function:

function getusers{
    $users = @()
    $i = 0
    do {
        $user = ""| select Row, Username, Firstname, lastname
        $user.row = $i
        $user.username ="user$i"
        $user.Firstname = "fname$i"
        $user.lastname = "lname$i"
        $users += $user
        $i += 1
    }while ($i -le 5)

    # Actual logic to build the contents of the $users variable here.
    $users | ft -AutoSize
    $selection = Read-Host "Select number for appropriate user"

    # Logic to determine if user selection is a valid number based on the number of rows in the variable.
    $user = $users[$selection]
    $user
}
$selecteduser = getusers

When calling the function and storing the results in a variable the $users | ft does not display in my console. If I just call the function without storing the results in a variable, the console displays the results of $users | ft.

User Out-Gridview with the -passthru parameter instead of Format-Table — EBGreen
– EBGreen, Commented May 3, 2018 at 18:55
It's unclear what this code is supposed to achieve. Create 5 "user" objects and then only return one of them? Why create the 4 others then? Also the "logic to determine if user selection is a valid number" does nothing even close to that. Explain what this code is for. — Tomalak
– Tomalak, Commented May 3, 2018 at 18:57
What about return $user as the last command in the function? — user6811411
– user6811411, Commented May 3, 2018 at 18:58
@LotPings There is no need to use return statements in PowerShell. Any value that is not assigned to a variable is returned. — Tomalak
– Tomalak, Commented May 3, 2018 at 19:03
Get-Help about_return tells me it's not neccessary - but not useless ;-) — user6811411
– user6811411, Commented May 3, 2018 at 19:11

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-31 21:08:49Z

1

It sounds like your question is the following:

How can you display the output of Format-Table in the console when you are calling Format-Table inside of a function where the final output of the function is being assigned to a variable?

From the comments it is clear that you do not want to significantly alter your code, and that you do not want to use something like Out-GridView.

In order to achieve this with the smallest change possible you can change your code:

$users | ft

to the following:

$users | ft | Out-Host

This will print the results of Format-Table to the console, and the value at the end of the function

$user

will be assigned to the variable.

It was tested on Windows 7, PowerShell version 4, in both the ISE and running as a script.

edited Oct 31, 2018 at 21:08

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 4, 2018 at 20:35

emanresu

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1 Comment

Burt_Harris Over a year ago

Using Out-Host as suggested in this answer seems like a reasonable solution, but I'm not sure the OP understands why this is happening. There's almost certainly other answers that might help him understand how multiple outputs work in PowerShell, linking to one might improve the answer

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