CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershell
tRuEsAtM
tRuEsAtM

Reputation: 3678

Why order is not maintained while reading a text file from Powershell?

Below is my Powershell script:

$server_file = 'serverlist.txt'
$servers = @{}
Get-Content $server_file | foreach-object -process {$current = $_.split(":"); $servers.add($current[0].trim(), $current[1].trim())}
foreach($server in $servers.keys){
    write-host "Deploying $service on $server..." -foregroundcolor green
}

My serverlist.txt looks like this:

DRAKE : x64
SDT: x64
IMPERIUS : x64
Vwebservice2012 : x64

Every time I run this script, I get IMPERIUS as my server name. I would like loop through the servers in the order they are written in serverlist.txt. Am I missing anything in Get-Content call?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 56

Answers (1)

Tomalak
Tomalak

Reputation: 338336

Don't store servers in a temporary variable.

The iteration order of hashtables (@{}) is not guaranteed by the .NET framework. Avoid using them if you want to maintain input order.

Simply do:

$server_file = 'serverlist.txt'

Get-Content $server_file | ForEach-Object {
    $current = $_.split(":")
    $server = $current[0].trim()
    $architecture = $current[1].trim()

    Write-Host "Deploying $service on $server..." -ForegroundColor Green
}

Note: Even if it probably won't make much of a difference in this particular case, in general you always should explicitly define the file encoding when you use Get-Content to avoid garbled data. Get-Content does not have sophisticated auto-detection for file encodings, and the default it uses can always be wrong for your input file.

Upvotes: 3

Related Questions