Looping through $json variable and grabbing each id to add to an array -

given processing following $json variable, how grab each server id (i.e. 215d1109-216d-48c3-af8e-998bb9bc3ca0 , 440cf918-3ee0-4143-b289-f63e1d2000e6 in case) , put array?

right $obj.servers.id returns nothing (as expected), $obj.servers.id[0] returns error message.

clear [system.reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname("system.web.extensions") | out-null $json = ' {     "servers": [         {             "admin_password": "qpyu66rkxmnk",             "id": "215d1109-216d-48c3-af8e-998bb9bc3ca0",             "links": [                 {                     "href": "http://openstack.example.com/v3/servers/<id>",                     "rel": "self"                 },                 {                     "href": "http://openstack.example.com/servers/<id>",                     "rel": "bookmark"                 }             ]         },         {             "admin_password": "wfksh3gttsep",             "id": "440cf918-3ee0-4143-b289-f63e1d2000e6",             "links": [                 {                     "href": "http://openstack.example.com/v3/servers/<id>",                     "rel": "self"                 },                 {                     "href": "http://openstack.example.com/servers/<id>",                     "rel": "bookmark"                 }             ]         }     ] } ' $ser = new-object system.web.script.serialization.javascriptserializer $obj = $ser.deserializeobject($json) $obj.servers.id; 

please note using powershell 2.0.

you're misunderstanding structure of data. $obj.servers array 2 fields, each of contains dictionary, not object containing array id. need make index access this:

$obj.servers[0].id 

$obj.servers.id[0] throw error, because array object $obj.servers doesn't have property id, in powershell v2 $obj.servers.id returns $null, , index access on null array fails (as you'd expect).

demonstration:

ps c:\> [void][reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname('system.web.extensions') $json = @' ... '@ ps c:\> $ser = new-object web.script.serialization.javascriptserializer ps c:\> $obj = $ser.deserializeobject($json) ps c:\> $obj.servers.gettype().fullname system.object[] ps c:\> $obj.servers.id -eq $null true ps c:\> $obj.servers[0].gettype().name dictionary`2 ps c:\> $obj.servers[0] | format-table -autosize  key            value ---            ----- admin_password qpyu66rkxmnk id             215d1109-216d-48c3-af8e-998bb9bc3ca0 links          {system.collections.generic.dictionary`2[system.str...  ps c:\> $obj.servers[0].id 215d1109-216d-48c3-af8e-998bb9bc3ca0

to extract ids pipe array foreach-object loop echo id property:

ps c:\> $ids = $obj.servers | % { $_.id } ps c:\> $ids 215d1109-216d-48c3-af8e-998bb9bc3ca0 440cf918-3ee0-4143-b289-f63e1d2000e6