Trouble with Powershell / Variables and Objects

jibbajabba

In Powershell (well, PowerCLI), I am getting a list of virtual machines and just "get" the first of a sorted list

get-vm | where-object { $_.name -like "$vm-BkpClone-*"} | Sort-Object name | Select-Object -First 1 

Now I need to call this at a later stage in an if-statement so I am trying to put this into a variable

$oldClone = get-vm | where-object { $_.name -like "$vm-BkpClone-*"} | Sort-Object name | Select-Object -First 1 

It kinda works, but not perfectly. I noticed whilst it seems to be working, it breaks other parts of the script, writing to a logfile for example.

Here the whole extract from the part in question

		If(Get-VM $cloneName) 
		{
	 		"$(Get-Date –f o) - $cloneName Created Sucessfully" | Out-File $VM_Clonelog -Append -Encoding "ASCII"
		

		
		$oldClone = get-vm | where-object { $_.name -like "$vm-BkpClone-*"} | Sort-Object name | Select-Object -First 1 
				
		if ($oldClone -match $cloneName) 
			{
			Write-Host "`nCreated clone is the only copy - nothing to delete" | Out-File $VM_Clonelog -Append -Encoding "ASCII"
			}
			
			else
			
			{
			Write-Host "`nDeleting oldest clone" | Out-File $VM_Clonelog -Append -Encoding "ASCII"
			Get-VM $oldClone | Remove-VM -DeleteFromDisk -Confirm:$False  | Out-File $VM_Clonelog -Append -Encoding "ASCII"
			}
			
		
	    $VMsCloned = $VMsCloned +1
		
 		} 

The second line "$cloneName Created Sucessfully" is being passed correctly into the logfile, and from that point on it stops.

I also notice that if I am moving

$oldClone = get-vm | where-object { $_.name -like "$vm-BkpClone-*"} | Sort-Object name | Select-Object -First 1 

Outside the "main" if-statement, the second if-statement stops working.

Hope it make sense ?

Qord

Meh....these always give me trouble. Have you tried $oldClone.name?

if ($oldClone.name -match $cloneName)

What about complicating it by adding another variable in there....

$oldClone = get-vm | where-object { $_.name -like "$vm-BkpClone-*"} | Sort-Object name | Select-Object -First 1 
$oldClone2 = $oldClone.name
if ($oldClone2 -match $cloneName)

I usually wind up doing a lot of trial end error before something like this works for me, complex variables give me a lot of trouble.