CODEWITHSUNDEEP
arraysstringpowershelljagged-arrays
miguello
miguello

Reputation: 584

Powershell - join nested string arrays

Let's say I have an array:

$stringArray = @('a', 'b', 'c')

To get a joined string out of it I do something like this:

$stringArray -join ','

It will result in

a,b,c

What do I need to do (in a clean and efficient way), if I have

$stringArray = @(@('a1','a2','a3'), 'b', 'c')

and I want to get

a1,a2,a3,b,c

???

UPDATE: My current script is this:

($stringArray | %{$_ -join ','}) -join ','

but the dimension of this jagged array is hardcoded (i.e. it only works with arrays of arrays, not with arrays of arrays of arrays). Anything more elegant and flexible?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 532

Answers (1)

Theo
Theo

Reputation: 61028

What you need is a recursive helper function to flatten the array.

Something like this:

function Flatten-Array([array]$a) {
    $a | ForEach-Object {
        if ($_ -is [array]) { Array-Flatten $_ } else {$_ }
    }
}

Usage:

$stringArray = @(@('a1','a2','a3'), 'b', 'c')
$flatArray = Flatten-Array $stringArray
$flatArray -join ','  # --> a1,a2,a3,b,c

Or with deeper nested arrays:

$stringArray = @('X','Y','Z',@(@('a1','a2','a3',@(3,4,5)), 'b', 'c'))
$flatArray = Flatten-Array $stringArray
$flatArray -join ','  # --> X,Y,Z,a1,a2,a3,3,4,5,b,c

Upvotes: 3

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