Iterate a string in Powershell to create multiple variables

Question

Hi,
looking for a help to parse a string in powershell, that I acquire from a log file. Heres the string example.

Start of task1
Number of errors:0
End of task
Start of task 2
ERR something went wrong
ERR another thing went wrong
Number of errors: 2
End of task

Now I would need to create a separate variable that I can further work with, which only contains information for a given task. There can be multiple tasks in the log file and each task can have random number of lines, depending on number of errors.
Is this possible somehow? So far cant find a way to do it.
Cheers Leos

Answer 1

Here's one way to process a log file.

$AllTasks = @()   
$entries = @()  
$log = Get-Content c:\temp\x.txt   
$capture = $false   
foreach ($row in $log) {  
    if ($row.StartsWith("End of task")) {        # look for whatever indicates an end   
        $capture = $false  
        $AllTasks += [PSCustomObject]@{  
                ID       = $taskid  
                Messages = $entries   
        }   
        $entries = @()  
    }  
    if ($capture) {  
        $entries += $row  
    }  
    if ($row.StartsWith("Start of task")) {      # look for whatever indicates a start    
        $capture = $true  
        $taskid = $row.Substring(13).trim()      # whatever comes after start of task     
    }  
  
}  
"Processing done."  
"We found {0} tasks." -f $AllTasks.count  
 foreach ($task in $AllTasks) {  
    "Task id is {0}" -f $task.id  
    foreach ($msg in $task.Messages) {  
        "    {0}" -f $msg  
    }  
}                 

Based on what you posted, it should produce this output.

Processing done.
We found 2 tasks.
Task id is 1
Number of errors:0
Task id is 2
ERR something went wrong
ERR another thing went wrong
Number of errors: 2

Answer 2

Thanks a lot man, I will adapt that to my exact needs.