Write-Output from variable showing "at curly brace" notation value [duplicate]

Question

I'm more of a Linux bash shell guy and am running up against something in PowerShell that is puzzling me. I want to extract a list of user names from AD in a foreach loop and perform a certain operation on them.

At this point I'm simply concerned about whether I'm pulling the correct string before I run any important operation based on that string. Here is what I'm running as a test (details in square brackets removed for privacy):

Import-Module ActiveDirectory
foreach ($x in (Get-ADUser -Filter * -Server "[host]" -SearchBase '[mybase]' | Select-Object SamAccountName)) {
    Write-Output "Alias is: $x"
}

So the deal is, if I leave off the double quotes in the Write-Output statement it looks great and will print:

Alias is:
username1
Alias is:
username2
Alias is:
username3

It injects a newline before each value though, which I'd rather remove/strip from the string.

But inside of double quotes I instead get:

Alias is: @{SamAccountName=username1}
Alias is: @{SamAccountName=username2)
Alias is: @{SamAccountName=username3}

I'm not sure how to extract the value I'm looking at from this. What am I looking at here? Is this something I need to dereference, or something in an array I need to extract? Or is my variable value actually an object and not a string and I need to somehow do a ToString() operation on it (or equivalent)?

Select-Object SamAccountName -> Select-Object -Expand SamAccountName — Ansgar Wiechers
– Ansgar Wiechers, Commented Jun 21, 2019 at 16:47
Ah, so indeed it is an object (as I should have inferred from the command Select-Object), and expand pulls the string out of it. It's always something simple. Thanks! — SeligkeitIstInGott
– SeligkeitIstInGott, Commented Jun 21, 2019 at 16:50
I don't actually think this is a duplicate as it is specific to Select-Object and the linked-to alternate question does not so much as mention the Expand parameter, potentially confusing other viewers who happen upon this question. I can see how the output notation overlaps, but nothing else. I mean, I got my answer and am happy with it, but you may want to think about what exactly was a duplicate and how I would have found that other thread using the search feature on this site prior to posting my own (which I did). If someone types "at curly bracket" on Google mine will likely be indexed. — SeligkeitIstInGott
– SeligkeitIstInGott, Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 17:19
The problem described in that question is exactly the same as yours, and the answers, particularly the one from mklement0, describe the solution to that problem. — Ansgar Wiechers
– Ansgar Wiechers, Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 19:14
Yes. Parameter names in PowerShell can be shortened as long as they remain unique. -ExpandProperty is the same as -ExpandPr, or -Expand, or even -Exp. However, -Ex or -E will not work, b/c there's another parameter named -ExcludeProperty. — Ansgar Wiechers
– Ansgar Wiechers, Commented Jun 25, 2019 at 15:10

mklement0 · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-22 22:22:15Z

4

The issue is here:

Select-Object SamAccountName

it returns an object with SamAccountName property. If you want the value only, use
-ExpandProperty:

Select-Object -ExpandProperty SamAccountName

edited Jun 22, 2019 at 22:22

mklement0

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answered Jun 21, 2019 at 16:47

Robert Dyjas

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