Question

First post, I’ve been researching this all day and I’m at my wits end! I have an array called $Global:CBCGroups that I want to contain the value of an ever-changing variable called $Global:CBCTempHolder. Whenever $Global:CBCTempHolder is changed, I want it to add it’s contents to the array $Global:CBCGroups using += (ie:

$Global:CBCGroups += $Global:CBCTempHolder

The columns in CBCGroups are CBCGroup, and Element. The same is present in $Global:CBCTempHolder, but the value changes in every “For” statement. Here is the code:

$Global:CBCGroups = @()


for ($z = 0; $z -lt $Global:UniqueCCData.count; $z +=1)
{
If ($Global:UniqueCCData[$z]."AD Group".Contains("CBC_CBC_") -eq $True)
{
        $Global:CBCTempHolder = @(0) * 1 | select CBCGroup,Element
        $Global:CBCTempHolder.CBCGroup = $Global:UniqueCCData[$z]."AD Group"
        $Global:CBCTempHolder.Element = $z
        $Global:CBCGroups += $Global:CBCTempHolder
        $Global:UniqueCCData[$z]."AD Group" = $Global:UniqueCCData[$z]."AD Group".Replace("CBC_CBC_","CBC.CBC")

    }
}

So, basically what is happening is whenever I add a new element to $Global:CBCGroups via:

$Global:CBCGroups += $Global:CBCTempHolder

I am noticing that whenever I change the value of $Global:CBCTempHolder and then manually change the values of $Global:CBCTempHolder.CBCGroup to anything, add say 5 elements in a row using the assign by addition operator, and then change the value of $Global:CBCTempHolder again manually, it changes the last 5 elements in $Global:CBCGroups to the same value! I need each element in $Global:CBCGroups to maintain it’s value from the time when it was added to the array.

I realize $Global:CBCTempHolder is not a true array, but it contains the two named elements that I need to have added to a new list. How can I achieve this?

Answer 1

Here’s code that exhibits the issue:

$UniqueCCData = @()
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "Domain Users" }
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "CBC_CBC_Enterprise Admins" }
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "CBC_CBC_Help Desk" }
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "CBC_CBC_Marketing" }
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "CBC_CBC_Sales" }
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "Domain Admins" }
$CBCGroups = @()
for ($z = 0; $z -lt $UniqueCCData.count; $z += 1)
{
    if ($UniqueCCData[$z]."AD Group".Contains("CBC_CBC_") -eq $True)
    {
        $CBCTempHolder = @(0) * 1 | select CBCGroup,Element
        $CBCTempHolder.CBCGroup = $UniqueCCData[$z]."AD Group"
        $CBCTempHolder.Element = $z
        $CBCGroups += $CBCTempHolder
        $UniqueCCData[$z]."AD Group" = $UniqueCCData[$z]."AD Group".Replace("CBC_CBC_","CBC.CBC")
    }
}
$CBCTempHolder.CBCGroup = "CBC_CBC_VIPs"
$CBCTempHolder.Element = 5
$CBCGroups += $CBCTempHolder
$CBCGroups

Here’s the output:

CBCGroup                    Element
--------                    -------
CBC_CBC_Enterprise Admins         1
CBC_CBC_Help Desk                 2
CBC_CBC_Marketing                 3
CBC_CBC_VIPs                      5
CBC_CBC_VIPs                      5

The problem is that a reference to the object is assigned. So when the object changes, any objects that are referencing it also appear to change. The way to work around this to assign unique objects to each index of CBCGroups. Here’s how I’d solve it:

function CBC_clone($group, $i)
{
    $temp = @(0) * 1 | select CBCGroup,Element
    $temp.CBCGroup = $group.Replace("CBC_CBC_","CBC.CBC")
    $temp.Element = $i
    return $temp
}
$UniqueCCData = @()
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "Domain Users" }
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "CBC_CBC_Enterprise Admins" }
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "CBC_CBC_Help Desk" }
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "CBC_CBC_Marketing" }
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "CBC_CBC_Sales" }
$UniqueCCData += new-object psobject -property @{ "AD Group" = "Domain Admins" }
$CBCGroups = @()
for ($z = 0; $z -lt $UniqueCCData.count; $z += 1)
{
    if ($UniqueCCData[$z]."AD Group".Contains("CBC_CBC_") -eq $True)
    {
        $CBCGroups += (CBC_clone $UniqueCCData[$z]."AD Group" $z)
    }
}
$CBCGroups += (CBC_clone "CBC_CBC_VIPs" 5)
$CBCGroups

This produces the desired output:

CBCGroup                 Element
--------                 -------
CBC.CBCEnterprise Admins       1
CBC.CBCHelp Desk               2
CBC.CBCMarketing               3
CBC.CBCSales                   4
CBC.CBCVIPs                    5