Powershell - How to iterate over array that is a value in a dictionary-CodePudding

I have a particular case in Powershell that I didn't think would be a problem but apparently, it is.

I have data that I read from a file in the following structure:

$dict=[ordered]@{
   "key1"=@(
             "value1",
             "value2",
             "value3"          
           );
   "key2"=@(
             "value1",
             "value2"         
           );
}

... and so on. A dictionary with keys that have arrays of strings as their value. When I try to iterate through the array and make another string with each of the array items, the array of strings gets "flattened out" into a single string. For example:

foreach($Key in $dictionary){

    foreach($item in $Key.Values){
        $newString="New string with $item"
        $newString
        }   
}

The output (just for the first key) is

"New string with value1 value2 value3"

Instead of what I would expect

"New string with value1"
"New string with value2"
"New string with value3"

And the weirdest part is that when I just print out the values without making the new string, it prints every item individually as it should.

I really don't understand this behavior from what should be a very elementary iteration. Can anyone explain to me why this is happening, and what the proper way to do this is?

CodePudding user response：

You need to enumerate the root array:

foreach($Key in $dict.GetEnumerator()){
    foreach($item in $Key.Value){
        $newString="New string with $item"
        $newString
        }   
}

Or use it actual keys:

foreach($Key in $dict.Keys){
    foreach($item in $Dict[$Key].Value){
        $newString="New string with $item"
        $newString
        }   
}