Output of array of arrays in Powershell / Powercli gets truncated w/ellipses - arrays

Question

The purpose of my script is to get the entire list of VMs from our vcenter, check to see if they have DNS entries - if the dns entry is null then output the VM name and corresponding IP address. Pretty simple, but I'm getting tripped up combining the VM name array with the IP address array. Here's what I mean:
$mainArray = #()
$vmArray = #()
$ipArray = #()
$vms = Get-VM | select Name, #{N="DnsName"; E={$_.ExtensionData.Guest.Hostname}}, #{N="IPAddress"; E={$_.Guest.IPAddress[0]}}
foreach ($vm in $vms)
{
$dnsname = $vm.DnsName
$ipaddr = $vm.IPAddress
$vmname = $vm.Name
if (!$vm.DNSName) #if DNS name is null
{
$vmArray += $vmname
$ipArray += $ipaddr
}
}
$item = New-Object PSObject
$item | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name 'VM Name' -Value $vmArray
$item | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name 'IP Address' -Value $ipArray
$mainArray += $item
$mainArray | ft -wrap -autosize
This outputs the two columns next to each other, but the output is separated by commas and is truncated with an ellipse. I know that there's a better way to do this, so I'm open to suggestions. Also be curious to know how to make this work just for my own understanding. Appreciate the help everyone.

Answer 1

Your main issue is that you are populating an array outside your loop. I don't have access to PowerCLI right in front of me now but we should be able to remove most of that code as it appears to be redundant and needless. Continuing after $vms being declared
$vms | Where-Object{!$_.DNSName} | ForEach-Object{
New-Object PSObject -Property #{
'VM Name' = $_.Name
'IP Address' = $_.IPAddress
}
} | ft -wrap -autosize
Before you made a two arrays. One for names and the other ips. Then you took those 2 arrays and made a single object with those two properties. I removed the need for the if statement with the Where-Object{!$_.DNSName}. Now all the objects being processed are the ones you want.
You could really do this is in one/two lines using the same logic.
Get-VM | Select #{N='VM Name';E={$_.Name}}, #{N="DnsName"; E={$_.ExtensionData.Guest.Hostname}}, #{N="IP Address"; E={$_.Guest.IPAddress[0]}} |
Where-Object{!$_.DNSName} | Select "VM Name","IP Address" | Format-Table -wrap -autosize
Again, I cannot test but it should work. If there are any errors they should be easily correctable. Assuming I figured out your issue in the first place.
About the ellipses
PowerShell has a variable $FormatEnumerationLimit that governs how many array elements are display in console output. There is a good article that discusses it on TechNet
By default $FormatEnumerationLimit is set to 4

Answer 2

Matt, I had found that link earlier but didn't find it very helpful since it makes the output garbled and doesn't breakout the values by row. This is how I was able to make the original script work:
$i=0
write-output $vmArray |
foreach {
new-object psobject -property #{
VMName = $_
IPAddress = $ipArray[$i++]
}
} | ft -auto -wrap
Rather unconventional, but does work nonetheless. There really should be an easier way to combine array side by side, but I digress. Thanks a ton Matt.
Update: This is probably more conventional:
For($i=0;$i -lt $vmArray.Count;$i++)
{
$item = New-Object PSObject
$item | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name 'VM Name' -Value $vmArray[$i]
$item | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name 'IP Address' -Value $ipArray[$i]
$mainArray += $item
}
$mainArray | ft -wrap -autosize