Question

I need your inputs on how to convert the output from a SQL query into a string in powershell. I am currently doing the following

function ExecuteFromScriptRowset($connectionParams, $file)
{
     return (invoke-sqlcmd @connectionParams 
             -inputFile $file -MaxCharLength 8000000)
}

I use the above function to call a .sql file that does something like

SELECT Names FROM tblXXX

Here is the actual powershell code that I use to invoke the SQL stored proc

$output = ExecuteFromScriptRowset $someDB (Resolve-Path '.\selectXXX.sql')

The output is an array of System.Data.DataRow which I need to convert to a string array. I am currently trying out the following which is not working as intended

$formatOut = @()

for ($i=0; $i -le $output.Length; $i++)
{
    $formatOut = $formatOut + [string]$output[$i]
}

Here is the output of $formatOut is after the for loop and this is not what I was looking for

$formatOut[0] = System.Data.DataRow
$formatOut[1] = System.Data.DataRow
$formatOut[2] = System.Data.DataRow

Could you please let me know what I need to do so that I create a string array of the contents of the $output object

Answer 1

What you are seeing is completely normal, because by default ToString will output object type. This is per .NET specifications.

You can convert a DataRow to array of object using ItemArray, and then join via “,” or whichever join method you prefer, like this:

$formatOut = $formatOut + ($output[$i].ItemArray -join ",")