Getting length of HashTable in powershell

Question

I'm new to powershell and trying to get the length of a HashTable (to use in a for loop), but I can't seem to get the length of the HashTable to output anything.

$user = @{}
$user[0] = @{}
$user[0]["name"] = "bswinnerton"
$user[0]["car"] = "honda"

$user[1] = @{}
$user[1]["name"] = "jschmoe"
$user[1]["car"] = "mazda"

write-output $user.length   #nothing outputs here

for ($i = 0; $i -lt $user.length; $i++)
{
    #write-output $user[0]["name"]
}

score 27 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 23 '13 at 13:29

27

@{} declares an HashTable whereas @() declares an Array

You can use

$user.count

to find the length of you HashTable.

If you do:

$user | get-member

you can see all the methods and properties of an object.

$user.gettype()

return the type of the object you have.

edited Jul 23 '13 at 13:29

Umar Farooq Khawaja

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answered Nov 09 '12 at 16:31

CB.

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+1 For pointing out get-member. Somehow I never learned this and it will make things much easier in the future. – Logan Feb 10 '17 at 23:14

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 09 '12 at 16:30

4

$user is a hash table, so you should user$user.count instead.

answered Nov 09 '12 at 16:30

Lee

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Though note that (painfully) [everything has a `Length` an `Count` now](https://stackoverflow.com/a/29761715/1028230). Explanation at [that link](https://stackoverflow.com/a/29761715/1028230). – ruffin Nov 30 '21 at 17:50

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 09 '12 at 16:34

1

That's not an array but a hashtable. Use .count instead:

write-output $user.count

answered Nov 09 '12 at 16:34

andrux

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Getting length of HashTable in powershell

3 Answers3