How to exclude non-valued object properties when converting to JSON in Powershell
Something like this?
$object = New-Object PSObject
Add-Member -InputObject $object -MemberType NoteProperty -Name TableName -Value "MyTable"
Add-Member -InputObject $object -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Description -Value "Lorem ipsum dolor.."
Add-Member -InputObject $object -MemberType NoteProperty -Name AppArea -Value "UserMgmt"
Add-Member -InputObject $object -MemberType NoteProperty -Name InitialVersionCode -Value ""
# Iterate over objects
$object | ForEach-Object {
# Get array of names of object properties that can be cast to boolean TRUE
# PSObject.Properties - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.management.automation.psobject.properties.aspx
$NonEmptyProperties = $_.psobject.Properties | Where-Object {$_.Value} | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Name
# Convert object to JSON with only non-empty properties
$_ | Select-Object -Property $NonEmptyProperties | ConvertTo-Json
}
Result:
{
"TableName": "MyTable",
"Description": "Lorem ipsum dolor..",
"AppArea": "UserMgmt"
}
beatcracker's helpful answer offers an effective solution; let me complement it with a streamlined version that takes advantage of PSv4+ features:
# Sample input object
$object = [pscustomobject] @{
TableName = 'MyTable'
Description = 'Lorem ipsum dolor...'
AppArea = 'UserMgmt'
InitialVersionCode = $null
}
# Start with the list of candidate properties.
# For simplicity we target *all* properties of input object $obj
# but you could start with an explicit list as wellL
# $candidateProps = 'TableName', 'Description', 'AppArea', 'InitialVersionCode'
$candidateProps = $object.psobject.properties.Name
# Create the filtered list of those properties whose value is non-$null
# The .Where() method is a PSv4+ feature.
$nonNullProps = $candidateProps.Where({ $null -ne $object.$_ })
# Extract the list of non-null properties directly from the input object
# and convert to JSON.
$object | Select-Object $nonNullProps | ConvertTo-Json
I have the following function in my profile for this purpose. Advantage: I can pipe a collection of objects to it and remove nulls from all the objects on the pipeline.
Function Remove-Null {
[cmdletbinding()]
param(
# Object to remove null values from
[parameter(ValueFromPipeline,Mandatory)]
[object[]]$InputObject,
#By default, remove empty strings (""), specify -LeaveEmptyStrings to leave them.
[switch]$LeaveEmptyStrings
)
process {
foreach ($obj in $InputObject) {
$AllProperties = $obj.psobject.properties.Name
$NonNulls = $AllProperties |
where-object {$null -ne $obj.$PSItem} |
where-object {$LeaveEmptyStrings.IsPresent -or -not [string]::IsNullOrEmpty($obj.$PSItem)}
$obj | Select-Object -Property $NonNulls
}
}
}
Some examples of usage:
$AnObject = [pscustomobject]@{
prop1="data"
prop2="moredata"
prop5=3
propblnk=""
propnll=$null
}
$AnObject | Remove-Null
prop1 prop2 prop5
----- ----- -----
data moredata 3
$ObjList =@(
[PSCustomObject]@{
notnull = "data"
more = "sure!"
done = $null
another = ""
},
[PSCustomObject]@{
notnull = "data"
more = $null
done = $false
another = $true
}
)
$objList | Remove-Null | fl #format-list because the default table is misleading
notnull : data
more : sure!
notnull : data
done : False
another : True