foreach-object

[lldmka]

Can someone point me in the right direction? I'm trying to input a list of VMs from a text file to a simple script (example below), but can't get the loop working. You can tell I'm new to Powershell (and only have basic scripting knowledge)!

$vms = import-csv "D:\virtualisation\scripts\powershell\vms.txt"

foreach ($vm in $vms) {

get-datastore -vm $vm

}

I've also tried the get-content cmdlet, with similar results.

[LucD]

Can you also give us a sample of what you have in the file "vms.txt" ?

If that file is a real CSV file with row headers the name of your vm should be in a property of the $vm variable.

For example, if the " vms.txt" contains something like this

Name,Attribute
PC1,abcd
PC2,klmn

Your code should be

$vms = import-csv "D:\virtualisation\scripts\powershell\vms.txt"
foreach ($vm in $vms) {
   get-datastore -vm (Get-Vm $vm.Name)
}

[lldmka]

Great, thanks. The text file just had a list of VM names:

Name

PC1

PC2

Trying to make sense of a VM disk size script I downloaded (attached). Can you tell me how to apply your earlier advice to replace the line below, so as to take input from my text file - everything I have tried has failed (typically getting "attempted to divide by zero"):

$VMs = Get-VM | Sort Name # Get all VMs (sorted)

Or would it just be easier to add a Get-Cluster statement and filter the output for the VMs I'm interested in??

[LucD · Accepted solution]

You could change that line as follows

$VMs = Import-Csv "D:\virtualisation\scripts\powershell\vms.txt" | %{get-vm $_.Name} | sort Name

But if the CSV file only contains the names of the VMs in a specific cluster you could indeed also use this line

$VMs = Get-Cluster <your-cluster-name> | Get-Vm | Sort Name

[lldmka]

Excellent, thanks for your help.