Tag: array

Pipe array to Powershell script

I created a Powershell script to set a few mailbox properties. I wanted to pipe in an array of mailbox objects, i.e. the results of a Get-Mailbox command, like so:

$Mailboxes | C:\Set-MailboxProperties.ps1

However, Set-MailboxProperties.ps1 only processed the first item in the array.

Via Google I found this helpful StackOverflow post, How to pass an array as a parameter to another script? Although the answers did not include an example exactly like mine, their solution works just the same:

(,$Mailboxes) | C:\Set-MailboxProperties.ps1

Javascript Array Sort & Random Ordering

Recently a colleague and I were looking at some Javascript code that randomizes a list of elements. The code did this by creating an array of list-item elements, and then passing a comparison function that returns a random result to the array.sort() method. Unfortunately, the random order was anything but random: after reloading the page 50 times, the distribution was skewed heavily towards the original array ordering.

In case you don’t feel like reading my entire exploration of this topic, I’ll give you the short version:
Don’t use array.sort() to randomize arrays! There are methods of randomizing arrays that produce better (i.e. more random) results, and that are (probably) faster.
Continue reading Javascript Array Sort & Random Ordering

Using a list or array as a PowerShell script input parameter

One of my colleagues created a PowerShell script that we use to migrate SharePoint 2010 sites from the SharePoint 2007 interface (UI 3) to the SharePoint 2010 interface (UI 4). The script works rather well for updating one or two sites at a time:

Set-UserInterface2010.ps1 -url "https://my.sharepoint.site/path/"

Today I received a request to update a list of 32 sites. After updating one, I thought–this is going to be tedious. We can improve this.

First, I updated the parameter to accept an array of strings instead of a single string.

Before
param([string]$url = $(throw "Please specify a Site URL to convert to the SP2010 look and feel"))

After
param([string[]]$url = $(throw "Please specify a Site URL to convert to the SP2010 look and feel"))

Next, I wrapped the call to the main function in a ForEach loop:
ForEach ( $siteurl in $url ) {
...
# Throw in a line break to separate output
Write-Host ("`n`n")
}

The script can still take a single site as input (the string is treated as a string array with a single element), but now I can also pass it a list:

Set-UserInterface2010.ps1 -url "https://my.sharepoint.site/path1/","https://my.sharepoint.site/path2/","https://my.sharepoint.site/path3/"

Here’s hoping that taking a couple minutes to update the script and running it once saved me more time than running it 32 times!