Add items to an PowerShell array, and process the array in batches

May 2, 2024

I have an array with strings:

$Names = @("Name1","Name2","Name3","Name4","Name5","Name6","Name7","Name8","Name9","Name10")

I want to do the following:

I want to have a Skip variable, where I will cut my array in chunks, and want to print my names with 5 seconds in between.

I have tried it by doing the following:

$BatchSkip = 5 


for($i = 0; $i -lt $names.Count; $i += $BatchSkip){
    $tempArray = $names |Select-Object -First $BatchSkip
    foreach ($name in $tempArray)
    {
        write-host $name 
    } Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
}

But this keeps printing the same names. What factor is missing in my code to implement that it ‘loops’ over my array?

>Solution :

If I correctly understood what you are trying to achieve, then this should work:

$Names = @("Name1","Name2","Name3","Name4","Name5","Name6","Name7","Name8","Name9","Name10")

$BatchSkip = 5

for($i = 0; $i -lt $names.Count; $i += $BatchSkip){
    $tempArray = $names[$i..($i+$BatchSkip-1)]
    foreach ($name in $tempArray)
    {
        write-host $name 
    } Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
}

Your tempArray did not contain the correct values of names, since there was no dependence on the loop variable i.