How can I set left/right column justification in Powershell's "format-table"

Question

When I use "format-table" to display data created with [pscustomobject], if the data in a column is a value pulled from the output of a commandlet, it shows on the right of its column. However, if a value is something I set manually, it shows on the left of its column.

Here's an example using the "NetApp.ONTAP" module:

$volSis = Get-NcSis -Name 'MyVolume'
$object = [pscustomobject]@{
  'Compression' = $volSis.IsCompressionEnabled #This resolves to 'True' or 'False'
  'Dedupe' = 'Foo'
  }
$object | Format-Table

The output of this is:

Compression Dedupe
----------- ------
       True Foo

Is there any way to force all columns in a table to be left (or right) justified? Alternatively, is there a way to force manually-created data (i.e. the 'Foo' in this example) to be right-justified?

Answer 1

The easiest way to do it would be to coerce the bool property (displayed with Right alignment by default) to a string:

[pscustomobject]@{
    Volume      = 'foo'
    Compression = $true -as [string] # strings always have Left alignment
    Dedupe      = 'foo'
}

Another option, you can use -Property with Alignment set to Left for the bool property:

[pscustomobject]@{
    Volume      = 'foo'
    Compression = $true
    Dedupe      = 'foo'
} | Format-Table Volume, @{ E = 'Compression'; Alignment = 'Left' }, Dedupe

Unfortunately you also need to list the rest of the properties to be displayed.

Yet another option, more complicated, is to create a custom ps1xml format file:

Set-Content .\myCustomViewForMyCustomType.Format.ps1xml -Value @'
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Configuration>
  <ViewDefinitions>
    <View>
      <Name>myCustomViewForMyCustomType</Name>
      <ViewSelectedBy>
        <TypeName>MyCustomType</TypeName>
      </ViewSelectedBy>
      <TableControl>
        <TableHeaders>
          <TableColumnHeader>
            <Label>Volume</Label>
          </TableColumnHeader>
          <TableColumnHeader>
            <Label>Compression</Label>
            <Alignment>Left</Alignment>
          </TableColumnHeader>
          <TableColumnHeader>
            <Label>Dedupe</Label>
          </TableColumnHeader>
        </TableHeaders>
        <TableRowEntries>
          <TableRowEntry>
            <TableColumnItems>
              <TableColumnItem>
                <PropertyName>Volume</PropertyName>
              </TableColumnItem>
              <TableColumnItem>
                <PropertyName>Compression</PropertyName>
              </TableColumnItem>
              <TableColumnItem>
                <PropertyName>Dedupe</PropertyName>
              </TableColumnItem>
            </TableColumnItems>
          </TableRowEntry>
        </TableRowEntries>
      </TableControl>
    </View>
  </ViewDefinitions>
</Configuration>
'@

Then you can use Update-FormatData to add this custom format:

Update-FormatData -AppendPath .\myCustomViewForMyCustomType.Format.ps1xml

And lastly, if you add the special PSTypeName property with the same value used in <TypeName>MyCustomType</TypeName>, all your objects will be displayed using the specifics of that file, in this case the <Label>Compression</Label> will have <Alignment>Left</Alignment>:

[pscustomobject]@{
    PSTypeName  = 'MyCustomType'
    Volume      = 'foo'
    Compression = $true
    Dedupe      = 'foo'
}

# Volume Compression Dedupe
# ------ ----------- ------
# foo    True        foo