📦 PowerShell JSON Handling — Advanced

JSON is everywhere, and PowerShell’s got you covered for reading, manipulating, and writing JSON data. Here’s how to master it.

💡 Pro Tip: Use our JSON lessons to get a intro to this lesson here.

📚 Basic JSON Parsing

$json = '{
  "name": "Alex",
  "age": 25,
  "skills": ["C#", "PowerShell", "JSON"]
}'
$obj = $json | ConvertFrom-Json

$obj.name        # "Alex"
$obj.skills[1]   # "PowerShell"

📂 Parsing JSON from a File

# Assume data.json contains JSON content
$content = Get-Content -Raw -Path "data.json"
$obj = $content | ConvertFrom-Json

Write-Output $obj.name

🛠️ Creating Nested Objects & Accessing Properties

$json = '{
  "person": {
    "name": "Alex",
    "contacts": {
      "email": "alex@example.com",
      "phone": "123-456-7890"
    }
  }
}'
$obj = $json | ConvertFrom-Json

Write-Output $obj.person.contacts.email   # alex@example.com

⚠️ Handling Malformed JSON

$json = '{ "name": "Alex", "age": 25, }'   # Notice the extra comma!

try {
  $obj = $json | ConvertFrom-Json
} catch {
  Write-Output "❌ Error parsing JSON: $_"
}

🌐 Using JSON with REST APIs

$response = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://api.example.com/users/1"
# $response is already an object parsed from JSON

Write-Output $response.name
Write-Output $response.email

Output will appear here...

💡 ConvertFrom-Json is your friend for turning JSON text into PowerShell objects, and ConvertTo-Json helps serialize back. Use try/catch to catch malformed JSON errors!