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Drifter104
Asked: 2017-04-06 07:52:50 +0800 CST

Office365 PowerShell issues with DateTime variables

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I have the following very simple PowerShell snippet that just won't work.

The following works

Get-MessageTrace -StartDate $dateStart -EndDate $dateEnd -PageSize 5000 `
    -SenderAddress [email protected] `
    | where {$_.RecipientAddress -like "*example.com*"} `
    | Select-Object SenderAddress, RecipientAddress, Subject

While the following does not work

$dateStart = "03/20/2017"
$dateEnd = "03/27/2017"

Get-MessageTrace -StartDate $dateStart -EndDate $dateEnd -PageSize 5000 `
    -SenderAddress [email protected] `
    | where {$_.RecipientAddress -like "*example.com*"} `
    | Select-Object SenderAddress, RecipientAddress, Subject

Even if I replace the $dateStart and $dateEnd with various formats such as MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss.

There is no error, just no results returned, however I've used where patterns that I know should return something. I've also ran the above (example that doesn't work) using today's date (which is the default when -startdate and -enddate are not specified) and that also doesn't work. Even though that is what the working example is effectively using.

So I've narrowed it down to the date but I can't see the problem. If I put in a date string that is wrong that at least gives and error, otherwise nothing. Any pointers?

exchange

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    In your script, you are currently using

    $dateStart = "03/20/2017"
$dateEnd = "03/27/2017"

    Because in this case the values are string of characters, Windows PowerShell will automatically use the String data type to store the value, while Get-MessageTrace -StartDate and -EndDate only take System.DateTime type variables.

    You can set the correct type variable by using Get-Date like this:

    $dateStart = Get-Date "03/20/2017"
$dateEnd = Get-Date "03/27/2017"

    Alternatively, you can create new System.DateTime object by specifying the type of the variable first and then assign a string value to it (if it is a value that can be cast to System.DateTime):

    [System.Datetime]$dateStart = "03/20/2017"
[System.Datetime]$dateEnd = "03/27/2017"

    However, I'd prefer Get-Date as it makes your script more generalizable. For example you can create a script that always gives you information on last seven days:

    $dateEnd = Get-Date
$dateStart = (($$dateEnd).AddDays(-7))

Get-MessageTrace -StartDate $dateStart -EndDate $dateEnd -PageSize 5000 `
    -SenderAddress [email protected] `
    | where {$_.RecipientAddress -like "*example.com*"} `
    | Select-Object SenderAddress, RecipientAddress, Subject

    Additional hint:

    You can also use Get-Date for figuring out the short date format defined in the Regional Options:

    Get-Date -Format d

    It will give you the correct short date pattern you need for your EndDate and StartDate parameters.

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