Format AzurePowerShell cmdlet output

Warning

The AzureRM PowerShell module has been officially deprecated as of February 29, 2024. Users are advised to migrate from AzureRM to the Az PowerShell module to ensure continued support and updates.

Although the AzureRM module may still function, it's no longer maintained or supported, placing any continued use at the user's discretion and risk. Please refer to our migration resources for guidance on transitioning to the Az module.

By default each Azure PowerShell cmdlet has predefined formatting of output making it easy to read. PowerShell also provides the flexibility to adjust the output or convert the cmdlet output to a different format with the following cmdlets:

Formatting	Conversion
Format-Custom	ConvertTo-Csv
Format-List	ConvertTo-Html
Format-Table	ConvertTo-Json
Format-Wide	ConvertTo-Xml

Format examples

In this example, we get a list of Azure VMs in our default subscription. The Get-AzureRmVM command defaults output into a table format.

Get-AzureRmVM

ResourceGroupName          Name   Location          VmSize  OsType              NIC ProvisioningState
-----------------          ----   --------          ------  ------              --- -----------------
MYWESTEURG        MyUnbuntu1610 westeurope Standard_DS1_v2   Linux myunbuntu1610980         Succeeded
MYWESTEURG          MyWin2016VM westeurope Standard_DS1_v2 Windows   mywin2016vm880         Succeeded

If you would like to limit the columns returned you can use the Format-Table cmdlet. In the following example, we get the same list of virtual machines but restrict the output to just the name of the VM, the resource group, and the location of the VM. The -Autosize parameter sizes the columns according to the size of the data.

Get-AzureRmVM |
  Format-Table -Property Name, ResourceGroupName, Location -AutoSize

Name          ResourceGroupName Location
----          ----------------- --------
MyUnbuntu1610 MYWESTEURG        westeurope
MyWin2016VM   MYWESTEURG        westeurope

Output can also be formatted into a list. The following example shows this using theFormat-List cmdlet.

Get-AzureRmVM |
  Format-List -Property Name, VmId, Location, ResourceGroupName

Name              : MyUnbuntu1610
VmId              : 33422f9b-e339-4704-bad8-dbe094585496
Location          : westeurope
ResourceGroupName : MYWESTEURG

Name              : MyWin2016VM
VmId              : 4650c755-fc2b-4fc7-a5bc-298d5c00808f
Location          : westeurope
ResourceGroupName : MYWESTEURG

Convert to other data types

PowerShell also allows taking command output and converting it into multiple data formats. In the following example, the Select-Object cmdlet is used to get attributes of the virtual machines in our subscription and convert the output to CSV format for easy import into a database or spreadsheet.

Get-AzureRmVM |
  Select-Object -Property ResourceGroupName, Id, VmId, Name, Location, ProvisioningState |
  ConvertTo-Csv -NoTypeInformation

"ResourceGroupName","Id","VmId","Name","Location","ProvisioningState"
"MYWESTUERG","/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/MYWESTUERG/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/MyUnbuntu1610","33422f9b-e339-4704-bad8-dbe094585496","MyUnbuntu1610","westeurope","Succeeded"
"MYWESTUERG","/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/MYWESTUERG/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/MyWin2016VM","4650c755-fc2b-4fc7-a5bc-298d5c00808f","MyWin2016VM","westeurope","Succeeded"

Output can also be converted into the JSON format. The following example creates the same list of VMs but changes the output format to JSON.

Get-AzureRmVM |
  Select-Object -Property ResourceGroupName, Id, VmId, Name, Location, ProvisioningState |
  ConvertTo-Json

[
    {
        "ResourceGroupName":  "MYWESTEURG",
        "Id":  "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/MYWESTEURG/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/MyUnbuntu1610",
        "VmId":  "33422f9b-e339-4704-bad8-dbe094585496",
        "Name":  "MyUnbuntu1610",
        "Location":  "westeurope",
        "ProvisioningState":  "Succeeded"
    },
    {
        "ResourceGroupName":  "MYWESTEURG",
        "Id":  "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/MYWESTEURG/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/MyWin2016VM",
        "VmId":  "4650c755-fc2b-4fc7-a5bc-298d5c00808f",
        "Name":  "MyWin2016VM",
        "Location":  "westeurope",
        "ProvisioningState":  "Succeeded"
    }
]