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John_Dodo's avatar
John_Dodo
Brass Contributor
Oct 26, 2022

Powershell : interprete string as variable name

Hello,

 

I want to importe values from a csv file. Some column have this sort of values : $myvar.

So it would be like this : 

log_message;server;scriptfolder;scriptname;action
blabla;myserver;$scriptfolder;$scriptname;letsdance

 

Now let say I want to do something like this : 

 

 

 

$scriptname = script.ps1
$references = import-csv .\mycsv -delimiter ";"

foreach ($ref in $references){
write-host "$($ref.log_message) - $($ref.scriptname)
}

 

 

 

 

If I run something like this I get :

blabla - $scriptname

 

Is it possible to ask powershell to interprete the value of $scriptname instead of sending the string value $scriptname ?

 

I tried 

 

 

 

get-variable($reference.scriptname)

 

 

 

but I get this

 

 

 

get-variable : Cannot find a variable with the name '$scriptname'.

 

 

 

 

though

 

 

 

write-host $scriptname

script.ps1

 

 

 

 

Thank you.

powershell
  • LainRobertson's avatar
    LainRobertson
    Silver Contributor
    Oct 26, 2022

    John_Dodo 

     

    There's a number of ways to do this - none of them particularly pretty.

     

    I've gone with a basic example that makes use of Invoke-Expression:

     

    Get-Content -Path D:\Data\Temp\forum.csv |
    ForEach-Object {
        if (-not $Header -and -not [string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($_))
        {
            $Header = $_.Split(';');
        }
        elseif ($Header)
        {
            ConvertFrom-Csv -InputObject (Invoke-Expression -Command "`"$_`"") -Delimiter ';' -Header $Header;
        }
    }

     

    Here's what the example looks like in action.

     

     

    Cheers,

    Lain

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