How to format an object into a nice HTML table?

Question

I have 2 scripts

script1 has the following:

$exportObject = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
$exportObject | Select-Object

in sc

Answer 1

You can be as creative as you like with HTML styling of course. Below code styles the table like this:

# just some fake data here
$exportObject = @(
    [PSCustomObject]@{
        'Server' = 'Server1.com'
        'Cube' = 'Cube1'
        'Connection Details' = 'Connection changed!'
    },
    [PSCustomObject]@{
        'Server' = 'Server2.com'
        'Cube' = 'Cube2'
        'Connection Details' = 'Connection Unchanged!'
    },
        [PSCustomObject]@{
        'Server' = 'Server3.com'
        'Cube' = 'Cube3'
        'Connection Details' = 'Connection changed!'
    }
)

function ConvertTo-HTMLTable ($obj) {
    # Accepts a System.Data.DataTable object or an array of PSObjects and converts to styled HTML table

    # add type needed to replace HTML special characters into entities
    Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Web

    $sb = New-Object -TypeName System.Text.StringBuilder
    [void]$sb.AppendLine('')
    if ($null -ne $obj) {
        if (([object]$obj).GetType().FullName -eq 'System.Data.DataTable'){
            # it is a DataTable; convert to array of PSObjects
            $obj = $obj | Select-Object * -ExcludeProperty ItemArray, Table, RowError, RowState, HasErrors
        }
        $headers = $obj[0].PSObject.Properties | Select -ExpandProperty Name
        [void]$sb.AppendLine('')
        foreach ($column in $headers) {
            [void]$sb.AppendLine(('' -f [System.Web.HttpUtility]::HtmlEncode($column)))
        }
        [void]$sb.AppendLine('')
        $row = 0
        $obj | ForEach-Object {
            # add inline style for zebra color rows
            if ($row++ -band 1) {
                $tr = '' -f $oddRowBackColor
            } 
            else {
                $tr = ''
            }
            [void]$sb.AppendLine($tr)
            foreach ($column in $headers) {
                [string]$val = $($_.$column)
                if ([string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($val)) { 
                    $td = '' 
                } 
                else { 
                    $td = '' -f [System.Web.HttpUtility]::HtmlEncode($val)
                }
                [void]$sb.Append($td)
            }
            [void]$sb.AppendLine('')
        }

        [void]$sb.AppendLine('')
    }
    [void]$sb.AppendLine('
{0}
 
{0}
')

    return $sb.ToString()
}


$headerBackColor = '#4F81BD'  # backgroundcolor for column headers
$oddRowBackColor = '#DCE6F1'  # background color for odd rows

$style = @"


    
    
    
    
    
"@

$body = '{0}{1}' -f $style, (ConvertTo-HTMLTable $exportObject)

Send-MailMessage -From $FromEm -Subject $Subject -To "user@domain.com" -Body $body -BodyAsHtml -SmtpServer $SmtpServer -Port $Port -Credential $Creds -UseSsl

Two examples to do table styling that mimic the MS Word Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5 can be found here

Hope that helps