Need help retrieving Deep values from Hashtable in Powershell

Question

I kinda need help retrieving deep values from HashTable.

My Situation: I wrote a C# executable which gives me data in JSON format that I stored in a variable $Result. I'm able to fetch and process all fields of $Result except nested HashTable called Properties and its keys (Locations). I just need to list the cities which are mentioned in the HashTable called Properties

At the minute I'm able to get the Locations Key as shown below

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $Result.Properties.Locations
City=NewYork,Country=USA,Year=2001;City=Seattle,Country=USA,Year=2002;City=Miami,Country=USA,Year=2010;City=SanJose,Country=USA,Year=2009

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> 

Expected Output:

NewYork
Seattle
Miami
SanJose

Properties Hashtable

[Properties]@
{
    accountExpires=Never;
    AccountLockedOut=False;
    mail=JamesBond@internationalspy.com;
    cn=Tom Cruise; 
    codePage=0; 
    countryCode=0; 
    displayName=Tom Cruise;
    employeeID=743355; 
    Enabled=True; 
    givenName=Tom; 
    instanceType=4; 
    lastLogoff=12/31/1600 4:00:00 PM; 
    lastLogon=3/27/2020 7:52:36 AM; 
    lastLogonTimestamp=5/25/2020 12:47:07 PM; 
    lockoutTime=12/31/1600 4:00:00 PM; 
    logonCount=4; 
    mail=jamesbond@InternalActor.com;
    Locations=City=NewYork,Country=USA,Year=2001;City=Seattle,Country=USA,Year=2002;City=Miami,Country=USA,Year=2010;City=SanJose,Country=USA,Year=2009
}

I need to get the fetch the list of cities which are nested with the above Hashtable. I just want the list of cities so that I can further apply my business logic and proceed further.

Answer 1

Here's some more alternatives for you:

split and replace:

($Result.Properties.Locations -split '[;,]' | Where-Object { $_ -match '^City=' }) -replace '^City='

split and ConvertFrom-StringData

($Result.Properties.Locations -split '[;,]' | ConvertFrom-StringData).City

iterate over matches

$match = ([regex]'(?i)City=([^,]+)').Match($Result.Properties.Locations)
while ($match.Success) { 
    $match.Groups[1].Value
    $match = $match.NextMatch()
} 

All result in

NewYork
Seattle
Miami
SanJose