In PowerShell, how can I combine the results of two commands that have a 1-to-1 relashionship?

Question

This particular example is Get-User and Get-Mailbox (Exchange 2010). Get-User returns some of the columns I need, and Get-Mailbox some others. I am having difficulty figuring out how I can combine the results of the two into a single table with the results from both.

Get-User -Filter "..." | Get-Mailbox -Filter "..."

How do I take the results of a command similar to the above and turn it into results similar to below?

FirstName  LastName  Alias   CustomAttribute1
---------  --------  ------  ----------------
Bob        Smith     bsmith  Example
Johnny     NoMail
Adam       Blye      ablye   Has a Mailbox

Note that FirstName and LastName are not returned by Get-Mailbox, and conversely Alias and CustomAttributes are not returned from Get-User. Not every user has a mailbox, so sometimes a portion of the columns would be null. But I'm having a devil of a time figuring out the best way to return a combined table like this.

Answer 1

I make a custom object, which may be overkill, but it's the simplest way I've found.

Here's some sample code to play with. Let me know if it generates any trouble or additional questions:

$outputCollection = @()
$users = Get-User -Filter "..."
$mailboxes = Get-Mailbox -Filter "..."

$users | Foreach-Object {
    #Associate objects
    $userObject = $_
    $mailboxObject = $mailboxes | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq $userObject.Name}

    #Make a combined object
    $outputObject = "" | Select Name, UserAttribute, MailboxAttribute
    $outputObject.Name = $userObject.Name
    $outputObject.UserAttribute = $userObject.UserAttribute
    $outputObject.MailboxAttribute = $mailboxObject.MailboxAttribute

    #Add the object to the collection
    $outputCollection += $outputObject
}

$outputCollection

Another option that should work is called calculated properties:

Get-User -Filter "..." | Select Name, UserAttribute, @{Name="OtherAttribute"; Expression={(Get-Mailbox $_.Name).MailboxAttribute}}

...note that this will run a new Get-Mailbox command for each entry, potentially increasing execution time