Blank description causing a Powershell error

Question

I know this is going to be simple...

We have a script that, when it encounters a user with a blank description field errors out. I've tried to "catch" it as below:-

 foreach ($subordinateDN in $subordinateDNs)  
 {  
 $subordinate = $Context.BindToObjectByDN($subordinateDN)  
 *try  
 {$desc = $Context.$subordinate.Get("description")}  
 catch  
 {$desc = "No Description"}*  
 $htmlReportMiddlePart += "Name: <b>" + $subordinate.Get("name") + "</b> -> " + $desc + "<br>"  
 # Output to GUI execution status report  
 $Context.LogMessage($subordinate.Get("name"), "Information")  
 }  

To try and make this something to do with Adaxes, and not a indicator that my PS skills are poor - is there a general way to deal with attribute queries if they return blank values?

:)

Answer 1

Hello,

Actually, using the try...catch block is the correct answer when dealing with empty values, however the statement in the try statement is incorrect. The correct statement will be:
$desc = $subordinate.Get("description")

Also, you get the subordinate's name two times (when generating the report part and when storing a record to the Execution Log). A better option would be to store the subordinate's name in a certain variable and use that variable. The following script block will do the job you need:

foreach ($subordinateDN in $subordinateDNs)
{
    $subordinate = $Context.BindToObjectByDN($subordinateDN)
    try
    {
        $desc = $subordinate.Get("description")
    }
    catch
    {
        $desc = "No Description"
    }
    $subordinateName = $subordinate.Get("name")
    $htmlReportMiddlePart += "Name: <b>" + $subordinateName + "</b> -> " + $desc + "<br>"
    # Output to GUI execution status report
    $Context.LogMessage($subordinateName, "Information")
}

Comments

Perfect advice as always ;)