How to join the value of two variables in the output of the command to convert in json mode with Pow-CodePudding

with powershell I can get, with just one line (prerequisite) and using foreach, the date of last update of the folders and the difference in days, however, I need to get this information in a format for use via json and I can't display the value of $pasta with the value of $DiasV why when converting with "| convertto-Json" the result is not in the correct format (I'm validating via https://jsonformatter.org/json-parser).

foreach ($pasta in Get-ChildItem -Path C:\TEMP\ -Directory) 
{
$ErrorActionPreference = 'SilentlyContinue';
$path = 'C:\TEMP\'   $pasta   '\EXAMPLE';
$start = Get-ChildItem -Path $path -File | Sort-Object -Property CreationTime | Select-Object -ExpandProperty LastWriteTime -Last 1;
$end = Get-Date; $DiasV = (New-TimeSpan -Start $start -End $end);
write $pasta.Name $pasta.LastWriteTime $DiasV.Days | ConvertTo-Json 
}

Output:

[
    "A123_1A_CAB",
    {
        "value":  "\/Date(1649508388226)\/",
        "DateTime":  "sábado, 9 de abril de 2022 09:46:28"
    },
    0
]
[
    "C166_5AND_BBB",
    {
        "value":  "\/Date(1649610666329)\/",
        "DateTime":  "domingo, 10 de abril de 2022 14:11:06"
    },
    2
]

My intention is to get this output:

[
    {
        "pasta":  "A123_1A_CAB"
        "value":  "\/Date(1649508388226)\/",
        "DateTime":  "sábado, 9 de abril de 2022 09:46:28"
        "Dias":  "0"
    },
    {
        "pasta":  "C166_5AND_BBB"
        "value":  "\/Date(1649610666329)\/",
        "DateTime":  "domingo, 10 de abril de 2022 14:11:06"
        "Dias":  "2"
    }
]

I need help to solve this, already tried several ways without success.I'm still learning english.

CodePudding user response：

Your primary problem is that you want the output to be converted to a single JSON array:

By placing your ConvertTo-Json call inside your foreach loop, you're creating a separate JSON document in each iteration, which when combined as-is result in malformed JSON.
Simply apply ConvertTo-Json to all your output objects, across all loop iterations instead; this is more easily accomplished if you switch to a single pipeline that uses the
ForEach-Object cmdlet.
Additionally, you need to encapsulate the pieces of information to report for each directory in an object whose properties contain the information:

To put it all together, with some optimizations:

Get-ChildItem -Path C:\TEMP\ -Directory |
  ForEach-Object { 
    $ErrorActionPreference = 'SilentlyContinue';
    $path = $_.FullName   '\EXAMPLE';
    $start = Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath $path -File | 
               Sort-Object -Property CreationTime |
                 Select-Object -ExpandProperty LastWriteTime -Last 1;
    $end = Get-Date; $DiasV = ($end - $start).Days;
    # Create a helper object for the "value" and "DateTime" properties. 
    $dateTimeCustom = $_.LastWriteTime | ConvertTo-Json | ConvertFrom-Json
    # Output the pieces of information encapsulated in an object.
    [pscustomobject] @{ 
      pasta = $_.Name;
      value = $dateTimeCustom.value;
      DateTime = $dateTimeCustom.DateTime;
      Dias = $DiasV
    }
} | ConvertTo-Json

Note:

The only reason I've kept the ; at the end of the statements is to facilitate transforming the code into a single line. As written, the ; are not necessary.
Your output implies that you're using Windows PowerShell, where ConvertTo-Json serializes [datetime] values as objects with two or three properties, .value (a custom string representation based on the Unix epoch time representation, e.g., "\/Date(1649508388226)\/"), .DateTime, a friendly display string, and - if the [datetime] instance was obtained via Get-Date - additionally a .DisplayHint property.
- To "flatten" these properties and make them direct properties of the output objects, a round-trip JSON conversion is used to create a helper object with those property values ($dateTimeCustom = $_.LastWriteTime | ConvertTo-Json | ConvertFrom-Json).
  - Strictly speaking, that ConvertTo-Json in Windows PowerShell produces an object with properties for a [datetime] instance - instead of just a single string such as "\/Date(1649508388226)\/" - should be considered a bug, not least because round-tripping such an object does not result in a [datetime] instance, but in a [pscustomobject] instance with properties .value and .DateTime and situationally also .DisplayHint (which we take advantage of here).
  - The problem occurs, because [datetime] instances are decorated with a type-level ETS ScriptProperty member, .DateTime, which, unfortunately, is included in the serialization, resulting in the two-property object representation at hand. If you were to remove the type data associated with [datetime], the problem would go away (but so would the property), e.g.:
```
# Windows PowerShell only.
# Note that if you were to use Get-Date output, *another*,
# instance-level ETS property would come into play, .DisplayHint
PS> Remove-TypeData System.DateTime; [datetime]::now | ConvertTo-Json
"\/Date(1649702531387)\/"  # e.g. - single string
```
Note that PowerShell (Core) 7 no longer uses this custom-object representation and instead serializes [datetime] instances as strings in ISO 8601 date-time format (e.g., "2021-10-11T13:27:12.3318432-04:00")