PowerSHell object with comma concatenation

Question

i want to concatenate objects using Powershell , if not null and add comma after that.

Example
$Result = $object1 , $object2, $object3, $Object4

if any of the objects are NULL , then i want to remove them from the above statement .. Say suppose $object4 is null, then my statement shoiuld be
$Result = $object1,$object2,Object3 (no comma in end )

Say suppose $object 2 is NULL, then my statement should be
$Result = $object1, $object3,Object4

Basically i want to omit the object which is null in the above statement .. i know if(obj) will check if object is null... but i have to write lengthy queries for it.. any powershell ternary or Coalesce or any othe way to achieve it.

Answer 1

Hello MSTechie,

The Join-String cmdlet joins or combines, text from pipeline objects into a single string.

If no parameters are specified, the pipeline objects are converted to a string and joined with the default separator $OFS.

By specifying a property name, the property's value is converted to a string and joined into a string.

Instead of a property name, a script block can be used. The script block's result is converted to a string before it's joined to form the result. It can either combine the text of an object's property or the result of the object that was converted to a string.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.utility/join-string?view=powershell-7.1

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Answer 2

Never underestimate the power of an idle mind!

$object1 = "aaaa"
$object2 = $null
$object3 = "cccc" 
$object4 = $null
$result = @()
$n =    Get-Variable -Name 'object*' | 
            ForEach-Object {
                if ($_.Value) {
                    $_.Name
                }
            }
$x = "{0} = {1}" -f "Result", ($n -join ",")

That yields this string in the variable $x:

$Result = $object1,$object3

Answer 3

Your description of your objective (and your previous comment) is a bit confusing.

You begin by giving an example of creating an array of objects ($Result = $object1 , $object2, $object3, $Object4), but you then ask how to change the STATEMENT, and not the contents of the array, into something different.

This sounds as if you're trying to create a string that will be used in an Invoke-Expression.

Do either one of these examples produce the result you want? If not, I think you need to further explain what you're attempting to do.

# Remove $null items from array
# and create new array
$x = $null,"aaaa","cccc",$null
$x = $x | Where-Object {$_ -ne $null}

# Join items of array and, if they aren't $null,
# create a comma separated string
$x = $null,"aaaa","cccc",$null
$x = ($x | Where-Object {$_ -ne $null}) -join ","

Answer 4

If you give your variables identifiable names you could do something like this.

cls
$object1 = "aaaa"
$object2 = $null
$object3 = "cccc" 
$object4 = $null
$result = @()
Get-Variable -Name 'object*' | foreach {    # get our objects
    if ($_.Value) {
        "Appending {0}" -f $_.name 
        $result += $_.Value               # append this object to the result
    }
}
""
"Result is type {0} with a count of {1}" -f $Result.GetType().BaseType, $Result.count
""
$Result