Format array and include in e-mail using powershell - arrays

Question

I am trying to build a powershell script which collects system up-time information from multiple system and then e-mails it. I want to format the e-mail so I can structure it in a sensible way and later add more information about the systems.
Today I have this script below which collect the uptime information about a list of systems and then passes these information in a array to the SendMail function which includes the array in an e-mail. However the current output is like this.
Uptime list: Restarted 02/19/2013 04:04:52 MyServer01 Computer Uptime: 23 days and 9 hours Restarted 02/15/2013 04:17:40 MyServer02 Computer Uptime: 27 days and 9 hours
I would like to have the output or rather the e-mail text more like:
System | Restarted date/time | Uptime
MyServer01 02/17/2013 04:04:52 25 days and 9 hours
MyServer02 02/17/2013 04:04:52 25 days and 9 hours
How can I format the text in the e-mail or do I have to do that before I pass the array to the e-mail function.
The script itself:
`
function SendMail([string]$arg1){
#SMTP server name
$smtpServer = "mysmtp"
#Creating a Mail object
$msg = new-object Net.Mail.MailMessage
#Creating SMTP server object
$smtp = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($smtpServer)
#Email structure
$msg.From = "my#overtherainbow.ddd"
$msg.ReplyTo = "noreply#overtherainbow.ddd"
$msg.To.Add("my#overtherainbow.ddd")
$msg.subject = "System uptime"
$msg.body = ("List og servers and uptime:" + $arg1 )
#Sending email
$smtp.Send($msg)}
function CheckUptime($listofservers){
$k =#()
foreach($s in $listofservers){
$Booted = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem -Computer $s
$Calc = [DateTime]::Now - $Booted.ConvertToDateTime($Booted.LastBootUpTime)
$k += " Restarted " +
$Booted.ConvertToDateTime($Booted.LastBootUpTime) +
" " + $s + " " +
" Computer Uptime: " +
$Calc.days + " " +
"days and", $Calc.hours + " hours"
}
return $k
}
#Defining list og servers
$listofservers = "MyServer01", "MyServer02"
#Calling function
$message = CheckUptime($serverlist)
SendMail($message)
`

Answer 1

Use Format-Table to format the data as desired, and pipe that into Out-String to convert into a single string containing the formatted data.
Then append that to your email content.
This relies on the data gathering replacing building a single string with building a custom object with separate fields for each different column.
Eg (incomplete, but should give you the idea)
$serverData = $serverList | Foreach-Object { GetServerData $_ } |
Format-Table Name,
#(l='Boot Time'; e={$_.BootTime.ToLocalTime()}},
#(l='Uptime'; e={FormatUptime([DateTime]::UtcNow - $_.BootTime}} |
Out-String
$emailBody += $serverData
where the referenced functions are already defined, along the lines of:
function GetServerData {
params([string]$name)
$os = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem -Computer $name
$bootTimeLocal = $os.ConvertToDateTime($os.LastBootUpTime)
new-object PSObject -property #{
Name = $name;
# Keep everything in UTC to avoid confusion in calcs,
# TODO FIX: Use the remote machine's timezone for this....
BootTime = $bootTimeLocal.ToUniversalTime()
}
}
and
function FormatUptime {
params([TimeSpan]$time)
...
}
Summary:
Use Format-* cmdlets to format, and if not immediately passing to output (and the default Out-Default appended to the end of every pipeline without an Out-*) then convert to a string with Out-String.
Keep data types in their native type as long as possible. Do not convert to human readable forms until you have to. Thus information is not lost.
Make use of custom objects and properties (especially NoteProperties) to create your own object "types" to keep related information together.

Answer 2

First, it shows little effort when your sample is not even a working sample. Variable typos etc.
As a solution, why don't you create custom objects containing the data for each server and output it as an array?. Something like:
PS > function CheckUptime($listofservers){
$res = #()
foreach($s in $listofservers){
$boot = Get-WmiObject win32_operatingsystem -ComputerName $s | % { $_.ConvertToDateTime($_.LastBootUpTime) }
$uptime = [DateTime]::Now - $boot
$res += New-Object psobject -Property #{
Server = (Get-Culture).TextInfo.ToTitleCase($s)
BootTime = $boot
Uptime = "{0} days and {1} hours" -f $uptime.Days, $uptime.Hours
}
}
#Output
$res
}
$myservers = "localhost", "localhost"
$str = "List of servers and uptime:`r`n"
$str += CheckUptime $myservers | Out-String
PS > $str
List of servers and uptime:
Server Uptime BootTime
------ ------ --------
Localhost 8 days and 6 hours 06.03.2013 09:33:37
Localhost 8 days and 6 hours 06.03.2013 09:33:37