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    Hi

    I was pulling a list of inactive computers from AD and sending them as an email monthly. Last week I added a link (helpdesk.ourdomain.com) to the email which takes the user to directly to the asset in our inventory.  What I didn't take in to consideration is that ConvertTo-HTML would convert < and > to &lt; and &gt;

    Same issue posted here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23143393/powershell-convertto-html-is-translating-and-symbols-to-lt-and-gt-how

    I can see that the solution is to use regular expressions with Replace operator. Is there any other way to solve this problem?

    $var = Get-ADComputer -Filter {LastLogonTimeStamp -lt 30} -Properties Name,OperatingSystem , LastLogonTimeStamp, Created, Description | Select @{Name="Name"; expression={"<a href='https://helpdesk.ourdomain.com/SystemList.jsp?k&searchField="+$_.Name+"'>"+$_.Name+"</a>"}}, Description, OperatingSystem , Created, @{N='LastLogonTimeStamp'; E={[DateTime]::FromFileTime($_.lastlogontimestamp)}} | ConvertTo-HTML | Out-String

    essentially i need "&lt;" replaced with "<" , "&gt;" with ">" and "&#39;" with "'" 

    Thanks


    • Edited by net_tech Friday, August 30, 2019 2:42 AM
    Thursday, August 29, 2019 11:32 PM

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    Using XML is more powerful and more specific.

    $tmplt = 'https://helpdesk.ourdomain.com/SystemList.jsp?k&searchField={0}'
$css = @'
<style>
    th {
        color:red;
        background-color: lightblue;
    }
    table {border-collapse: collapse}
    table, th, td {
      border: 1px solid black;
    }
</style>
'@
$date = [datetime]::Today.AddDays(-30)    
$properties = 'Name', 'OperatingSystem', 'LastLogonDate', 'Created', 'Description'
[xml]$xml = Get-ADComputer -Filter {LastLogonDate -lt $date} -Properties $properties |
    Select-Object $properties |
    ConvertTo-HTML -Head $css
$xml.html.body.table.tr | 
    Where-Object{-not $_.th} | 
    ForEach-Object{
        $node = $_.ChildNodes[0]
        $name = $node.'#text'
        $node.InnerText = ''
        $url = $tmplt -f $name
        $el = $xml.CreateElement('a')
        $el.InnerText = $name
        $el.SetAttribute('href',$url)
        [void]$_.ChildNodes[0].AppendChild($el)
        
    }
$xml.Save("$pwd\test.htm")
. "$pwd\test.htm"

    \_(ツ)_/

    • Marked as answer by net_tech Saturday, August 31, 2019 3:23 PM
    Saturday, August 31, 2019 2:14 PM

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    Use the "=replace" operator to replace the characters.

    \_(ツ)_/

    • Proposed as answer by BOfH-666 Friday, August 30, 2019 6:33 AM
    Friday, August 30, 2019 3:58 AM
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    as shown here https://superuser.com/questions/904741/using-replace-on-pipes-in-powershell ?
    Saturday, August 31, 2019 1:14 PM
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    found my answer here 

    https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3403217/how-to-replace-multiple-strings-in-a-file-using-powershell

    ...Out-String | % {$_.replace("&lt;", "<").replace("&gt;", ">").replace("&#39;", "'" ) }

    Saturday, August 31, 2019 1:26 PM
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    Using XML is more powerful and more specific.

    $tmplt = 'https://helpdesk.ourdomain.com/SystemList.jsp?k&searchField={0}'
$css = @'
<style>
    th {
        color:red;
        background-color: lightblue;
    }
    table {border-collapse: collapse}
    table, th, td {
      border: 1px solid black;
    }
</style>
'@
$date = [datetime]::Today.AddDays(-30)    
$properties = 'Name', 'OperatingSystem', 'LastLogonDate', 'Created', 'Description'
[xml]$xml = Get-ADComputer -Filter {LastLogonDate -lt $date} -Properties $properties |
    Select-Object $properties |
    ConvertTo-HTML -Head $css
$xml.html.body.table.tr | 
    Where-Object{-not $_.th} | 
    ForEach-Object{
        $node = $_.ChildNodes[0]
        $name = $node.'#text'
        $node.InnerText = ''
        $url = $tmplt -f $name
        $el = $xml.CreateElement('a')
        $el.InnerText = $name
        $el.SetAttribute('href',$url)
        [void]$_.ChildNodes[0].AppendChild($el)
        
    }
$xml.Save("$pwd\test.htm")
. "$pwd\test.htm"

    \_(ツ)_/

    • Marked as answer by net_tech Saturday, August 31, 2019 3:23 PM
    Saturday, August 31, 2019 2:14 PM
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    jrv,

    Can't agree more, your approach with XML is way better! Thank you for sharing 

    Saturday, August 31, 2019 3:26 PM