Help with browsing multi level arrays

[Sharantyr3]

Hi,

I'm writting a small code to export alarms from one vcenter to another. I know there is existing scripts that already do that, but I couldn't find one that works in multiple locations.

Here is what I wrote :

Functions :

function getAlarms{

    param($location)

    $origin = $location | Get-View | Get-VIObjectByVIView

    $alarms = Get-AlarmDefinition -entity $origin

    return $alarms

}

function createAlarms{

    param($location,$alarms)

    $destination = $location | get-view

    $alarmMgr = Get-View AlarmManager  

    ForEach($alarm in $alarms)

    {

        $newalarm=$null

        $newAlarm = New-Object VMware.Vim.AlarmSpec

        $newAlarm = (Get-View $alarm).Info

        try {

            $alarmMgr.CreateAlarm($destination.MoRef,$newAlarm)

        }

        catch {

        #alarms already exist because vcenter returns alarms created in the parent folders as if they were created here,

        #so can't avoid duplicates when browsing containers

        }

    }

}

Export the alarms :

$alarmsSRC = @{}

#save alarms in vcenter's root :

$alarmsSRC["root"] = getAlarms -location (get-folder -norecursion)

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"] = @{}

$datacenters = Get-Datacenter

ForEach ($datacenter in $datacenters)  {

    $alarmsSRC["datacenters"][$datacenter.Name] = @{}

    $alarmsSRC["datacenters"][$datacenter.Name]["root"] = getAlarms -location $datacenter

    $folders = Get-Folder -location $datacenter -Type vm | where-object {$_.Parent -like "vm"}   #only first sublevel of folders of a specific datacenter

    ForEach ($folder in $folders)  {

        $alarmsSRC["datacenters"][$datacenter.Name][$folder.Name] = getAlarms -location $folder

    }

}

From here all is fine, but now I need to recreate em and I don't know how to browse my array...

For exemple, I get an array like this :

$alarmsSRC["root"] = alarms_in_root

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 1"]["root"] = alarms_in_root_of_datacenter1

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 1"]["Folder A"] = alarms_in_folderA_of_datacenter1

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 1"]["Folder B"] = alarms_in_folderB_of_datacenter1

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 2"]["root"] = alarms_in_root_of_datacenter2

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 2"]["Folder A"] = alarms_in_folderA_of_datacenter2

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 2"]["Folder B"] = alarms_in_folderB_of_datacenter2

How to use my createAlarms function with this array ?

I'm a little stuck on how to extract the name of the datacenter and folders.

Here is what I've done to recreate the alarms :

ForEach ($datacenter in $alarmsSRC["datacenters"])  {

    ForEach ($folder in $datacenter)  {

        if (//$folder.Name// -eq "root")

        {

            #create alarms at the root of this datacenter

            createAlarms -location (get-datacenter -name //$datacenter.Name//) -alarms $folder

        } else {

            createAlarms -location (get-folder -name //$folder.Name// -Type vm -location (get-datacenter -name //$datacenter.Name//) | where-object {$_.Parent -like "vm"} ) -alarms $folder

        }

    }

}

As you can see I'm looking to extract "key" names of the array like "Datacenter 1", "Datacenter 2", "Folder A", etc.

Thanks for any help

[RvdNieuwendijk · Accepted solution]

The $alarmsSRC variable contains a collection of hash tables. You can use the GetEnumerator() method to enumerate the entries in a hash table. The following PowerCLI script shows you how to do that in your case. I leave it as an exercise to you to modify the script to create the alarms.

$alarmsSRC = @{}

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"] = @{}

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 1"] = @{}

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 2"] = @{}

$alarmsSRC["root"] = 'alarms_in_root'

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 1"]["root"] = 'alarms_in_root_of_datacenter1'

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 1"]["Folder A"] = 'alarms_in_folderA_of_datacenter1'

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 1"]["Folder B"] = 'alarms_in_folderB_of_datacenter1'

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 2"]["root"] = 'alarms_in_root_of_datacenter2'

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 2"]["Folder A"] = 'alarms_in_folderA_of_datacenter2'

$alarmsSRC["datacenters"]["Datacenter 2"]["Folder B"] = 'alarms_in_folderB_of_datacenter2'

$alarmsSRC["root"]

ForEach ($datacenter in $alarmsSRC["datacenters"].GetEnumerator())  {

  ForEach ($folder in $alarmsSRC["datacenters"][$datacenter.Key].GetEnumerator())  {

    $Folder.Key + " is " + $Folder.value

  }

}

[Sharantyr3]

Thanks, I didnt find anywhere the getenumerator tip that make the .key value accessible.

I was going to make a workarround and store the key name in the first row ...