Extracting HTML table from a web page (or HTML file) and converting it into PowerShell object

Extracting HTML table from a web page (or HTML file) and converting it into PowerShell object

ยท

2 min read

Several months ago I've created ConvertFrom-HTMLTable function for helping me extract HTML tables from locally saved HTML files or live web pages and convert them into usable PowerShell objects. So it is not a new function but I think it deserves a standalone post because it can be quite handy.

I've used it when I was talking about working with Confluence tables and now it helped me to retrieve a list of all SCCM logs from the official documentation page for my Get-CMLog function.

If you check that documentation page you will see there are several tables with dozens of log names so it would be a nightmare to get them by hand.

So how did I get all these log names? ๐Ÿ‘‡

# get content of web page
$pageContent = Invoke-WebRequest -Method GET -Uri "https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/core/plan-design/hierarchy/log-files"
# save all html tables
$allTables = $pageContent.ParsedHtml.getElementsByTagName('table')
# convert html tables to PowerShell objects
$allTablesAsObject = $allTables | Foreach-Object { ConvertFrom-HTMLTable $_ }
# output just 'Log name' property
$allTablesAsObject.'Log name'

And the result was like this ๐Ÿ‘‡ image.png

Easy right? ๐Ÿค“


Features of the ConvertFrom-HTMLTable function

  • converts ComObject representing HTML table to PowerShell object
    • it can be retrieved from a local HTML file or web page (check function examples)
  • supports setting the name of the table as 'TableName' property of the PowerShell object
  • supports HTML tables without header
    • if a table has 2 columns it will return a PowerShell object where the first column will be names of the properties and second their values
    • if a table has more than 2 columns, a PowerShell object will have numbers as property names

Enjoy ๐ŸŽ

Did you find this article valuable?

Support Ondrej Sebela by becoming a sponsor. Any amount is appreciated!

ย