I am inserting rows into a table from a Powershell script. I loop through

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Asked: May 30, 20262026-05-30T16:10:23+00:00 2026-05-30T16:10:23+00:00

I am inserting rows into a table from a Powershell script. I loop through

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I am inserting rows into a table from a Powershell script. I loop through a collection of PSObjects (“property bags”) and inserts a row for each one. Each noteProperty on the PSObject corresponds to a column in the table. Most of them are strings, a few are dates, and a few are booleans.

Properties that have a $null value in Powershell are being inserted as “blank” strings and not NULL in the table, however. $null date values show up as 1900-01-01. The table does not have any constraints beyond a couple of columns having NOT NULL specified. If I do a manual insert with NULL as a value, it works fine.

I could loop over each object looking for $null properties and then replace it with the string NULL, but that seems like a hack instead of the “right” way. As you can see below, I’m already doing this for the booleans, as their corresponding columns in the table are bits. I erroneously assumed that $null in Powershell would translate to NULL in SQL. Is there another way I can make it correctly insert NULL into the table if the property has a value in Powershell of $null? Or, is converting $null to the string “NULL” before inserting the best way to do it?

Here’s the code I’m using:

$listOfLunsReport = Import-Clixml e:\powershell\myObjectCollection.xml

$conn = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection
$conn.ConnectionString = "Data Source=SQLSERVER\MYDATABASE;Initial Catalog=my_report;Integrated Security=SSPI;"
$conn.open()

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand
$cmd.connection = $conn

foreach ($lunObject in $listOfLunsReport)
{
    if ($lunObject.SnapsConfigured -eq $true)
    {
        $snapBit = 1
    }
    else
    {
        $snapBit = 0
    }
    if ($lunObject.isDatastore -eq $true)
    {
        $dsBit = 1
    }
    else
    {
        $dsBit = 0
    }
    $cmd.commandtext = "INSERT INTO listOfLuns (Array,lunNumber,LunUID,CapacityInMB,StorageGroup,`
    SnapsConfigured,SnapName,SnapUID,NumberOfSnaps,LatestSnap,VM,PhysicalServer,isDatastore,`
    DatastoreName,ReportDate,ArrayModel,ArrayLocation) VALUES ('{0}','{1}','{2}','{3}','{4}',`
    '{5}','{6}','{7}','{8}','{9}','{10}','{11}','{12}','{13}','{14}','{15}','{16}')" -f `
    $lunObject.Array,$lunObject.lunNumber,$lunObject.LunUID,[int]$lunObject.CapacityInMB,`
    $lunObject.StorageGroup,$snapBit,$lunObject.SnapName,$lunObject.SnapUID,`
    $lunObject.NumberOfSnaps,$lunObject.LatestSnap,$lunObject.VM,$lunObject.PhysicalServer,`
    $dsBit,$lunObject.DatastoreName,$lunObject.ReportDate,$lunObject.ArrayModel,$lunObject.ArrayLocation
    $cmd.executenonquery()
}

$conn.close()