Print a value from a hashtable in Powershell

Question

I have the following code example. I am just trying to print the value from a hashtable key.

function New-Article()
{
  param ($volume, $issue, $title)

  $article = @{}
  $article.volume = $volume
  $article.issue = $issue
  $article.title = $title

  return $article
}

$article = New-Article(1, 2, "Article Title")
Write-Host "Article title: $article.title" # Output = Article title: System.Collections.Hashtable.title
Write-Host "Article title: $($article.title)" # Output = Article title: 
Write-Host "Article volume: $($article.volume)" # Output = Article volume: 1 2 Article Title

$article = New-Article 1, 2, "Article Title"
Write-Host "Article title: $($article.title)" # Output = Article title:

Edit added a line to test what is mentioned in the possible duplicate (relating to properties, not hashtables)

Edit Added more examples based on comments and answers

Possible duplicate of [How can you use an object's property in a double-quoted string?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1145704/how-can-you-use-an-objects-property-in-a-double-quoted-string) — user4003407, Sep 19 '18 at 16:49
According to that answer, I can add `$()` around the variable to print (for properties anyway), that resulted in an empty string when used with a hashtable — steveo225, Sep 19 '18 at 16:50

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 19 '18 at 17:00

4

You have 2 problems. In addition to enclosing the hashtable property access expression in a $(), you are invoking the function incorrectly. In powershell, arguments are passed to a function separated by spaces, with no brackets:

function New-Article()
{
  param ($volume, $issue, $title)

  $article = @{}
  $article.volume = $volume
  $article.issue = $issue
  $article.title = $title

  return $article
}

$article = New-Article 1 2 "Article Title"
Write-Host "Article title: $($article.title)"

answered Sep 19 '18 at 17:00

zdan

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When I removed the parenthesis from the call to `New-Article`, it resulted in the same output – steveo225 Sep 19 '18 at 17:01
remove the commas too, the commas tell powershell to create an array. – zdan Sep 19 '18 at 17:02

Print a value from a hashtable in Powershell

1 Answers1