6

I'm writing a script emitting output in columns using Format-Table, and cannot get more than 9 to show (either with or without the -AutoSize argument).

Just in case it is not my fault, just something undocumented:

What's the maximum number of columns which Format-Table can show?

If it is unbound, I'll distill a small reproducible case from my script.

I'm using PowerShell 4.0, and create the objects to list like this:

    New-Object PSCustomObject -Property ([Ordered] @{
        "BDS #" = $bdsVersion
        "HKCU" = $hkcuBasePath
        "HKLM" = $hklmBasePath
        "Name" = $fullName
        "CompilerVersion" = $compilerVersion
        "RTLVersion" = $rtlVersion
        "Define" = $define
        "Characterset" = $characterSet
        "Architectures" = $architecture
        "Frameworks" = $framework
        "DllSuffix" = $dllSuffix
    })

The DllSuffix column doesn't show even though my console window is wide enough (300 characters wide).

Edit:

As per suggestion by Cole9350, I added the -Wrap to the -AutoSize argument to format the table, but it still fails:

function Get-BDS-ProductSummaries {
    $bdsVersions = Get-BDS-Versions
    $bdsVersions | ForEach-Object { 
        $summary = Get-BDS-ProductSummary $_
        $summary
    } | Format-Table -AutoSize -Wrap
    # http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2011/03/21/psformatorselect.aspx
    Write-Host "Slash separated values like xxx/yyy means native/.NET"
}

I call this function from my "main" portion of the script:

$args | ForEach-Object {
    $arg = $_
    switch ($arg) {
# ...
        'ProductSummaries' {
            Write-Host "Product Summaries:"
            Get-BDS-ProductSummaries
        }
# ...
    }
    $anyArg = $True
}

The link explaining about combining -Wrap with -Format-Table also indicates that sometimes not all columns will show, but doesn't tell under what circumstances.

So I'm looking for guidance: when doesn't it show them all?

I even reordered some of the fields, and merged the HKCU/HKLM path into one field and put that last:

    New-Object PSCustomObject -Property ([Ordered] @{
        "BDS #" = $bdsVersion
        "Name" = $fullName
        "CompilerVersion" = $compilerVersion
        "RTLVersion" = $rtlVersion
        "Define" = $define
        "Characterset" = $characterSet
        "Architectures" = $architecture
        "Frameworks" = $framework
        "DllSuffix" = $dllSuffix
        "ProjectVersion" = $projectVersion
    #    "HKCU" = $hkcuBasePath
    #    "HKLM" = $hklmBasePath
        "HKCU/HKLM registry path" = $basePath
    })

It shows a 165 character wide table (whereas my console Window is 300 characters wide):

Product Summaries:

BDS # Name                    CompilerVersion RTLVersion Define               Characterset Architectures                         Frameworks DllSuffix ProjectVersion
----- ----                    --------------- ---------- ------               ------------ -------------                         ---------- --------- --------------
    1 Borland C# Builder 1    C#              C#         C#                   Unicode      C# .NET 1                             .NET       ????      ????
    2 Borland Delphi 8        none/16.0       none/16.0  VER160/VER160        Ansi/Unicode Win32;.NET 1                          VCL/.NET   80        80
    3 Borland Delphi 2005     17.0/17.0       17.0/17.0  VER170/VER170        Ansi/Unicode Win32;.NET 1                          VCL/.NET   90        ????
    4 Borland Delphi 2006     18.0/18.0       18.0/18.0  VER180/VER180        Ansi/Unicode Win32;.NET 2                          VCL/.NET   100       ????
    5 Borland Delphi 2007     18.5/19.0       18.0/19.0  VER180&VER185/VER190 Ansi/Unicode Win32;.NET 2                          VCL/.NET   100       ????
    6 CodeGear Delphi 2009    20.0            20.0       VER200               Unicode      Win32                                 VCL        120       11.1;12.0
    7 CodeGear Delphi 2010    21.0            21.0       VER210               Unicode      Win32                                 VCL        140       12.0
    8 Embarcadero Delphi XE   22.0            22.0       VER220               Unicode      Win32                                 VCL        150       12.2;12.3
    9 Embarcadero Delphi XE2  23.0            23.0       VER230               Unicode      Win32;Win64                           VCL        160       13.4
   10 Embarcadero Delphi XE3  24.0            24.0       VER240               Unicode      Win32;Win64;OSX32                     VCL;FMX1   170       14.3;14.4
   11 Embarcadero Delphi XE4  25.0            25.0       VER250               Unicode      Win32;Win64;OSX32;iOS-Arm             VCL;FMX2   180       14.6
   12 Embarcadero Delphi XE5  26.0            26.0       VER260               Unicode      Win32;Win64;OSX32;iOS-Arm;Android-Arm VCL;FMX2   190       15.1
   13 Embarcadero Appmethod 1 ????            ????       ????                 Unicode      ????                                  FMX2       ????      ????
   14 Embarcadero Delphi XE6  27.0            27.0       VER270               Unicode      Win32;Win64;OSX32;iOS-Arm;Android-Arm VCL;FMX2   200       15.4
   15 Embarcadero Appmethod 2 ????            ????       ????                 Unicode      ????                                  FMX2       ????      ????

With the path more towards the beginning, the output it 181 characters wide:

BDS # HKCU/HKLM registry path        Name                    CompilerVersion RTLVersion Define               Characterset Architectures                         Frameworks DllSuffix
----- -----------------------        ----                    --------------- ---------- ------               ------------ -------------                         ---------- ---------

With -Wrap, but without -AutoSize the last column doesn't show either.

When leaving the Format-Table away, it does show all fields, so New-Object PSCustomObject -Property does produce all properties:

BDS #                   : 14
HKCU/HKLM registry path : \Software\Embarcadero\BDS\14.0
Name                    : Embarcadero Delphi XE6
CompilerVersion         : 27.0
RTLVersion              : 27.0
Define                  : VER270
Characterset            : Unicode
Architectures           : Win32;Win64;OSX32;iOS-Arm;Android-Arm
Frameworks              : VCL;FMX2
DllSuffix               : 200
ProjectVersion          : 15.4
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3
  • 2
    It's not a set number of columns, it depends on the max size of the values in each column. Just use the -wrap parameter, or Select -expandProperty ... Either way this is just meant for console output Commented Jun 14, 2014 at 11:32
  • @Cole9350 You should convert your comment to the answer for the question. Commented Jun 14, 2014 at 20:48
  • @Cole9350 I tried that. doesn't work. just edited my answer with what I tried. Commented Jun 15, 2014 at 6:09

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
14

By default, Format-Table will only show 10 columns. To get them all, use "*". See Example and Output below for details.

(FYI: -Wrap is used when the column is being displayed but the data in it is being truncated.)

EXAMPLE:

$aryTemp = @()
$objTemp = New-Object PSObject
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column1 -Value "Data1"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column2 -Value "Data2"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column3 -Value "Data3"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column4 -Value "Data4"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column5 -Value "Data5"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column6 -Value "Data6"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column7 -Value "Data7"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column8 -Value "Data8"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column9 -Value "Data9"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column10 -Value "Data10"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column11 -Value "Data11"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column12 -Value "Data12"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column13 -Value "Data13"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column14 -Value "Data14"
$objTemp | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Column15 -Value "Data15"
$aryTemp += $objTemp

#only shows 10 columns
$aryTemp | Format-Table

#show all
$aryTemp | Format-Table *

OUTPUT:

Column1 Column2 Column3 Column4 Column5 Column6 Column7 Column8 Column9 Column10
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------
Data1   Data2   Data3   Data4   Data5   Data6   Data7   Data8   Data9   Data10  



Column1 Column2 Column3 Column4 Column5 Column6 Column7 Column8 Column9 Column10 Column11 Column12 Column13 Column14 Column15
------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Data1   Data2   Data3   Data4   Data5   Data6   Data7   Data8   Data9   Data10   Data11   Data12   Data13   Data14   Data15
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11 Comments

Hmm, now many of my columns get truncated with ellipsis (...) characters, see the output at gist.github.com/jpluimers/10c41bb23f1c7361f0ec268ecb378874 Can I get the best of both worlds?
What are you using to run this code - PowerShell.exe or an IDE? Can you provide the output in a list (so it's non-truncated)? And, what's your code to output look like?
I can provide the output in a list; it's this script which I now have truncated to 10 columns. I want to run both from the console as from an IDE. Script: bitbucket.org/jeroenp/besharp.net/src/tip/Native/Delphi/Scripts/… where parameter ProductSummaries will show the table of summaries for various Delphi versions. The Get-BDS-ProductSummary method assembles one entry and I've commented out so I end up at 10 columns per entry. (sorry for late response: I was away without internet for like a week)
In that case, you need to add -Width to it. Something like this: .\List-Delphi-Installed-Packages.ps1 ProductSummaries | Out-File -FilePath c:\temp\Delphi.txt -Width 500 Output differences: gist.github.com/anonymous/f9f45a86c94643e878eb99c647a59c2c
Glad all is working. By the way, check out -PassThru so you can log to a file but at the same time display to the console e.g. Add-Content $Logfile -Value $strTemp -PassThru.
|
3

The easiest and most reliable is to use $FormatEnumerationLimit with -wrap

When things are nested, Format-Table -wrap -Autosize still summarizes things with ...

Test it with a nested object:

$hash = [pscustomobject]@{
   'List' = 0.. 100   
   'files' = (Get-ChildItem ~ ).Name
}

$hash | Format-Table -Wrap -AutoSize
$hash | Format-Table -AutoSize

output:

List          files
----          -----
{0, 1, 2, 3…} {.android, .AndroidStudio, .AndroidStudio2.3, .beautifuldiscord…}


List          files
----          -----
{0, 1, 2, 3…} {.android, .AndroidStudio, .AndroidStudio2.3, .beautifuldiscord…}

Expand the first 10 items

$FormatEnumerationLimit = 10
$hash | Format-Table -AutoSize -Wrap

List                            files
----                            -----
{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9…} {.android, .AndroidStudio, .AndroidStudio2.3,
                                .beautifuldiscord, .cache, .cargo, .config, .dbus-keyrings,
                                .dotnet, .fiddler…}

Expand everything $FormatEnumerationLimit = -1

If it's too big it becomes less usable

List
----
{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24,
25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47,
48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70,
71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93,
94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100}

Format-List works better with -1

Get-Module | select Export* | Format-List

Format-Table is good around 15

Piping super wide tables to VS Code

$FormatEnumerationLimit = -1
Get-Module | format-table -AutoSize  | Out-String -Width 9999
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1 Comment

Thanks for the detailed insight. So far I have used the * trick mentioned by @Phry in the accepted answer. For future projects, I will try your suggestion and formulate some thoughts on using a global variable to influence a local problem. stackoverflow.com/a/38794195/29290 community.idera.com/database-tools/powershell/powertips/b/tips/… learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/…
0

So, now you write a lot about the question, for me the way Format-table behave was given by the *.format.ps1xml file given in C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0. But I can't find PSObject, nor PSCustomObject inside (so 9 seems to be the max by default).

Using the -property param of Format-Table, you can show as many properties as you want in the order you want.

Perhaps you can build your one format file using Writing a Windows PowerShell Formatting File, the Microsoft documentation about the subject.

My way of handling your problem is to create a my C# class (type), to insert it using Add-Type, and then to provide a type file and a format file.

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