Sorting of multiple AD-object attributes via Powershell-CodePudding

I would like to get a computer list from the AD with the groups the computers are members in. So far fairly easy:

Get-adcomputer -filter * -properties Memberof | Sort CanonicalName | select-object -Property Name, Memberof

Works fine but the problem is that the groups (members of attribute Memberof) are being listet unsorted and the sorting is inconsistent from object to object.

Name      Memberof                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
----      --------  
PC001     {CN=(A) Group3,OU=OU-Path,DC=domain,DC=local, CN=(A) Group1,OU=OU-Path,DC=domain,DC=local, CN=(A) Group4,OU=OU-Path,DC=domain,DC=local, CN=(A) Group2,OU=OU-Path,DC=domain,DC=local}
PC002     {CN=(A) Group4,OU=OU-Path,DC=domain,DC=local, CN=(A) Group3,OU=OU-Path,DC=domain,DC=local, CN=(A) Group2,OU=OU-Path,DC=domain,DC=local, CN=(A) Group3,OU=OU-Path,DC=domain,DC=local}
PC003     ...

I tried to get things sorted out based on my previous question using -ExpandProperty MemberOf e.g. somthing like this:

Get-adcomputer -filter * -properties Memberof | Sort CanonicalName | select-object -Property Name -ExpandProperty MemberOf | Sort-Object -Property MemberOf

Which I'm not surprised, did not work. Is is that possible in that manner or do I have to read out the Name and the MemberOf into separate variables and combine them again afterwards (and how do I make sure they "allign")? What would be a working approach?

CodePudding user response：

I believe the only way around this would be to construct a new object altogether however I don't see the point on doing this other than displaying the objects on the console. If this is meant for exporting the data, this approach is pointless given that CanonicalName is a string value and MemberOf is an array:

$computers = @(
    [pscustomobject]@{
        CanonicalName = 'somedomain.com/Computers/Computer2'
        Name          = 'Computer2'
        MemberOf      = @(
            'CN=(A) Group3,OU=OU-Path1,OU=OU-Path2,DC=domain,DC=local'
            'CN=(A) Group1,OU=OU-Path1,OU=OU-Path2,DC=domain,DC=local'
            'CN=(A) Group4,OU=OU-Path1,OU=OU-Path2,DC=domain,DC=local'
            'CN=(A) Group2,OU=OU-Path1,OU=OU-Path2,DC=domain,DC=local'
        )
    }
    [pscustomobject]@{
        CanonicalName = 'somedomain.com/Computers/Computer1'
        Name          = 'Computer1'
        MemberOf      = @(
            'CN=(A) Group3,OU=OU-Path1,OU=OU-Path2,DC=domain,DC=local'
            'CN=(A) Group1,OU=OU-Path1,OU=OU-Path2,DC=domain,DC=local'
            'CN=(A) Group4,OU=OU-Path1,OU=OU-Path2,DC=domain,DC=local'
            'CN=(A) Group2,OU=OU-Path1,OU=OU-Path2,DC=domain,DC=local'
        )
    }
)

$computers | Sort-Object CanonicalName | ForEach-Object {
    $_ | Select-Object Name, @{
        Name = 'MemberOf'
        Expression = { $_.MemberOf | Sort-Object }
    }
}

Name              MemberOf
----              --------
Computer1         {CN=(A) Group1,OU=OU-Path1,OU=OU-Path2,DC=domain,DC=local, CN=(A) Group2,....
Computer2         {CN=(A) Group1,OU=OU-Path1,OU=OU-Path2,DC=domain,DC=local, CN=(A) Group2,....

If this was meant for exporting the data to, for example a CSV, this would be the approach you should take:

$computers | ForEach-Object {
    foreach($group in $_.MemberOf)
    {
        $cn, $ou = $group -split '(?<!\\),',2
        [pscustomobject]@{
            CanonicalName = $_.CanonicalName
            Name          = $_.Name
            MemberOf      = $cn.Replace('CN=','')
            OU            = $ou
        }
    }
} | Sort-Object CanonicalName, MemberOf | Select-Object Name, MemberOf

Name      MemberOf
----      --------
computer1 (A) Group1
computer1 (A) Group2
computer1 (A) Group3
computer1 (A) Group4
computer2 (A) Group1
computer2 (A) Group2
computer2 (A) Group3
computer2 (A) Group4