Good morning. Stack Overflow, Powershell, Object Graph novice here.

I am interested in making an enhancement to the following program in Powershell. As of now, the program searches for "RatedOI" and entityType "Operator" inside of a ForEach. Once "Operator" is found, the program yields two objects of interest: id and RatedOI.

I have a complex JSON file where id and RatedOI appear in the JSON file. If RatedOI is not found in JSON file, the program still returns the id string. Is it possible to modify the code where no results yield for id and RatedOI when RatedOI is not found?

 id                                    RatedIO 
----                                  ------
6fe06340-072f-49b2-8d5a-449e3db80002   False

  Id                                     RatedOI
  ----                                  ------
  7af50dbb-7ea3-4458-adfe-a82198a80001
  7af50dbb-7ea3-4458-adfe-a82198a80002  False  

Can someone please review this sample JSON file and PowerShell code and provide feedback?
JSON code

 {
"id": "e0b8a6aa-2675-4d93-86ff-6a51a0daea85",
"_etag": "\"ba00b86de-0000-0100-00dd00-671029b20000",
"LOB": "A",
  "RD": {
  "PSM": {
  },
"entities": [
  {
  }
],
"qid": "638ee347-42ed-441c-a6ff-d6c99cf62df55",
"peakData": {
},
"PDR": []
},
"ASC": "Committed",
"entitiesData": {
"entities": [
  {
  },
  {
  "id": "b0000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000000b",
  "entityType": "InsuranceHistoryUserResponse",
  "ordinal": 0,
  "characteristics": {
  "PBILR": {
  "stringValue": "XYZ"
  },
  "PBILRC": {
    "stringValue": "XYZ"
  },
  "PISR": {
  "stringValue": "XeYZ"
  }
                    }     
  },
  {
    "id": "7af50dbb-7ea3-4458-adfe-a82198a80001",
    "entityType": "Operator",
    "ordinal": 0,
    "characteristics": {
      "FirstName": {
        "stringValue": "Joe"
      },
      "ODLNUR": {
        "stringValue": "A82539878"
      },
      "RatedOI2": {
        "boolValue": true
      }
    }
   },
   {
    "id": "b0000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000000",
    "entityType": "IHUR",
    "ordinal": 0,
    "characteristics": {
    "PBILR": {
    "stringValue": "XYZ"
    },
    "PBILRC": {
      "stringValue": "XYZ"
    },
    "PISR": {
    "stringValue": "XYZ"
    }
                      }     
    },
    {
      "id": "7af50dbb-7ea3-4458-adfe-a82198a80002",
      "entityType": "Operator",
      "ordinal": 0,
      "characteristics": {
        "FirstName": {
          "stringValue": "Joe"
        },
        "ODLNUR": {
          "stringValue": "3333"
        },
        "RatedOI": {
          "boolValue": false
        }
      }
     }

     ]
   }
   }

PowerShell code here, based on this answer:

Set-Location C:\Users\A187515\Downloads\
$file = Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Users\A187515\Downloads\ -Filter *.json | Sort-Object LastAccessTime -Descending | Select-Object -First 1
(Get-Content -Raw $file | ConvertFrom-Json) | ForEach-Object {
  foreach ($entity in $_.EntitiesData.Entities) {
    if ($entity.EntityType -eq 'Operator' -and $entity.Characteristics -isnot [array]) {
      $entity | Select-Object `
        id, 
        @{ Name = 'RatedOI'; Expression = { 
            $_.characteristics.RatedOI.boolValue } 
        }
    }
  }
}

Good morning. Stack Overflow, Powershell, Object Graph novice here.

I am interested in making an enhancement to the following program in Powershell. As of now, the program searches for "RatedOI" and entityType "Operator" inside of a ForEach. Once "Operator" is found, the program yields two objects of interest: id and RatedOI.

I have a complex JSON file where id and RatedOI appear in the JSON file. If RatedOI is not found in JSON file, the program still returns the id string. Is it possible to modify the code where no results yield for id and RatedOI when RatedOI is not found?

 id                                    RatedIO 
----                                  ------
6fe06340-072f-49b2-8d5a-449e3db80002   False

  Id                                     RatedOI
  ----                                  ------
  7af50dbb-7ea3-4458-adfe-a82198a80001
  7af50dbb-7ea3-4458-adfe-a82198a80002  False  

Can someone please review this sample JSON file and PowerShell code and provide feedback?
JSON code

 {
"id": "e0b8a6aa-2675-4d93-86ff-6a51a0daea85",
"_etag": "\"ba00b86de-0000-0100-00dd00-671029b20000",
"LOB": "A",
  "RD": {
  "PSM": {
  },
"entities": [
  {
  }
],
"qid": "638ee347-42ed-441c-a6ff-d6c99cf62df55",
"peakData": {
},
"PDR": []
},
"ASC": "Committed",
"entitiesData": {
"entities": [
  {
  },
  {
  "id": "b0000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000000b",
  "entityType": "InsuranceHistoryUserResponse",
  "ordinal": 0,
  "characteristics": {
  "PBILR": {
  "stringValue": "XYZ"
  },
  "PBILRC": {
    "stringValue": "XYZ"
  },
  "PISR": {
  "stringValue": "XeYZ"
  }
                    }     
  },
  {
    "id": "7af50dbb-7ea3-4458-adfe-a82198a80001",
    "entityType": "Operator",
    "ordinal": 0,
    "characteristics": {
      "FirstName": {
        "stringValue": "Joe"
      },
      "ODLNUR": {
        "stringValue": "A82539878"
      },
      "RatedOI2": {
        "boolValue": true
      }
    }
   },
   {
    "id": "b0000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000000",
    "entityType": "IHUR",
    "ordinal": 0,
    "characteristics": {
    "PBILR": {
    "stringValue": "XYZ"
    },
    "PBILRC": {
      "stringValue": "XYZ"
    },
    "PISR": {
    "stringValue": "XYZ"
    }
                      }     
    },
    {
      "id": "7af50dbb-7ea3-4458-adfe-a82198a80002",
      "entityType": "Operator",
      "ordinal": 0,
      "characteristics": {
        "FirstName": {
          "stringValue": "Joe"
        },
        "ODLNUR": {
          "stringValue": "3333"
        },
        "RatedOI": {
          "boolValue": false
        }
      }
     }

     ]
   }
   }

PowerShell code here, based on this answer:

Set-Location C:\Users\A187515\Downloads\
$file = Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Users\A187515\Downloads\ -Filter *.json | Sort-Object LastAccessTime -Descending | Select-Object -First 1
(Get-Content -Raw $file | ConvertFrom-Json) | ForEach-Object {
  foreach ($entity in $_.EntitiesData.Entities) {
    if ($entity.EntityType -eq 'Operator' -and $entity.Characteristics -isnot [array]) {
      $entity | Select-Object `
        id, 
        @{ Name = 'RatedOI'; Expression = { 
            $_.characteristics.RatedOI.boolValue } 
        }
    }
  }
}

• json
• powershell
• object-graph

• 2 FYI, I build a general ObjectGraphTool module that might help you to discover these type of object-graphs or even select you value in a single command (Get-Content -Raw $file | ConvertFrom-Json | Get-Node ~entityType=Operator..characteristics.RatedOI.boolValue=true....id).value. For details on this example, see: Get-Node and Extended Dot Notation. – iRon Commented Feb 16 at 9:23

1 Answer 1

Add -and $entity.Characteristics.RatedOI to your if-statement conditional:

# ...
(Get-Content -Raw $file | ConvertFrom-Json) | ForEach-Object {
  foreach ($entity in $_.EntitiesData.Entities) {
    # Note the addition of `-and $entity.Characteristics.RatedOI`
    if ($entity.EntityType -eq 'Operator' -and $entity.Characteristics -isnot [array] -and $entity.Characteristics.RatedOI) {
      $entity | Select-Object `
        id, 
        @{ Name = 'RatedOI'; Expression = { 
            $_.Characteristics.RatedOI.boolValue } 
        }      
    }
  }
}

The above takes advantage of PowerShell's implicit to-Boolean conversion:

• In a Boolean context - such as an if conditional - an object of any type can be used, which PowerShell then interprets as a Boolean.

• Thus, $entity.Characteristics.RatedOI evaluates to $true only if a .RatedOI property with a "truthy" value is present.

  • In your case, if a .RatedOI property is present, it, contains a nested object, which ConvertFrom-Json parses into a [pscustomobject]. Any [pscustomobject] instance is coerced to $true (even one without properties; try [bool] [pscustomobject] @{ }.

• In the absence of a .RatedOI property, PowerShell by default quietly returns $null when an attempt is made to such a non-existent property, and $null is coerced to $false (try [bool] $null).

  • A small caveat is that the quiet to-$null evaluation can be changed to reporting an error instead, namely if Set-StrictMode -Version 2 or higher is in effect.

  • You can guard against this by either placing Set-StrictMode -Off or Set-StrictMode -Version 1 (if you want errors to be reported for non-existent variables, which by default also evaluate to $null) at the start of your script / function.