TextTable Converter PowerShell Module

Description

Provides a simple way to convert text-based tables into PowerShell objects.

The underlying ConvertFrom-TextTable cmdlet provides:

• Conversion from text-based tables often encountered in cmd/bash-centric tools to PowerShell objects.
• Various options for handling the conversion logic when working with more complex/verbose output.
• Detect (and optionally report) table truncation (indicated by presence of trailing ellipsis).

Below are the current requirements for table conversion:

• Column headers must be left aligned.
• Column headers must be single words.
• Column headers must be on a single line.
• In the absence of a column separator, the first line of the -Text input is treated as the column header.
• All rows in the table respect the bounds setup by the first character of each column header.

With the above requirements, it is possible to support a simple solution for parsing table entries with spaces.

Note

The primary use-case of this module was to provide a simple way to access the list of upgradable packages from the output of winget update.

Installation

Install the module from PSGallery:

Install-Module -Name TextTable -Repository PSGallery

Load the module via:

Import-Module TextTable

Usage

An example use-case of this cmdlet is to interact with the winget update output as shown below:

$updates = @(winget update | ConvertFrom-TextTable)

if ($updates.Count -gt 0) {
    Write-Output "Below are all of the available updates:"
    $updates | Format-Table
    Write-Output "The first available update is:"
    $updates[0]
}

It is worth noting that the above is not a complete solution to capturing the updates from winget update as this may output more than one table that may need to be parsed and this cmdlet only parses the first table encountered. Additionally, the table that is output typically includes a count of how many packages are upgradable before a blank line is encountered. To solve both of these issues means that the user should:

• Split the winget update output to separate the two tables and pass them to this cmdlet individually
• Use the -LastLineRegEx option to specify the line containing the number of upgradable packages as the last line, or simply drop the entry from the resulting array of objects.

Testing

Basic tests are available via Pester. With Pester setup, run:

Invoke-Pester

Reporting Issues

If a particular command appears to be be problematic with ConvertFrom-TextTable, please report it in a GitHub issue. Or if so inclined, make a PR to address the problem.