Invoke-NcSysstat returns different output format when called within a script

[lewis_pomeroy]

When running Connect-NcController and then Invoke-NcSysstat -node <nodename> from a PS command line, it returns the standard output like in the documentation.  Includes the node name, CPU %, various protocol stats, etc etc on a single line updating on the 5 second interval as would be expected.   However when you run this from within a powershell script, the results are very much different.  I have looked at all the PS settings and environment variables and found no differences so far.  Wondering if anyone else has ran into this by chance or knows of a workaround to prevent it?   The client is Win7 and Toolkit version 3.1

A PS script determines some info as to how many nodes a cluster has and then executes the following line:

start-process powershell.exe -argument "-nologo -noexit -File .\Stats.ps1"

The script Stats.ps1 then attempts to run the Invoke-NcSysstat cmdlet in the resulting window:

Connect-NcController -name cluster01 -Cred loginID

Invoke-NcSysstat -node cluster1-01

The cmdlet runs just fine, but the output is completely weird compared to any documentation that I have seen.  This resulting output in the newly created powershell window is listed below.  I am trying to discover why this output is so drastically different when Invoke-NcSysstat is called within a script versus when it is ran on a command line, and hopefully find a workaround if anyone else has ran into this issue before.

NcController	: cluster1
Node	: cluster1-01
CifsOps	: 0
FcpOps	: 0
HttpOps	: 0
IscsiOps	: 0
NfsOps	: 5859.8333333333333333333333333

NetBytesReceivedPerSecond : 238311594.66666666666666666667

NetBytesSentPerSecond	: 253685760
DiskBytesReadPerSecond	: 38395904

DiskBytesWrittenPerSecond : 40650069.333333333333333333333

CpuBusy	: 74.663116524428080281888226490
AvgProcessorBusy	: 35.006236760762406766790643610
TotalProcessorBusy	: 280.04989408609925413432514891
TimeStamp	: 5/15/2014 12:19:46 PM
Name	: system
Uuid	: cluster1-01:kernel:system
CPU	: 35.006236760762406766790643610
NFS	: 5859.8333333333333333333333333
CIFS	: 0
HTTP	: 0
FCP	: 0
iSCSI	: 0
NetRcvd	: 238311594.66666666666666666667
NetSent	: 253685760
DiskRd	: 38395904
DiskWr	: 40650069.333333333333333333333

[beam]

When running commands in a script, any objects written to the pipeline are automatically sent to the default output formatter.  The Connect-NcController command writes the controller object to the pipeline, which is written to the console in a table format.  The Invoke-NcSysstat also writes objects to the pipeline, but they are not controller objects, so they do not fit into the controller table that had been created.  As a result, the sysstat objects are written as a list.  There are a few ways to change this.

1) You could capture the output of Connect-NaController into a variable.  Then you can use Write-Host to write a message to the console indicating the connection context.  For example:

$controller = Connect-NaController <IP>

Write-Host "Connected to $($controller).Name"

Invoke-NcSysstat

2) You could direct the output of Connect-NaController to Out-Null so it is not written at all.  For example:

Connect-NaController <IP> | Out-Null

Invoke-NcSysstat

3) You can direct Invoke-NcSysstat to format-table to force the table formatting.  For example:

Connect-NaController <IP>

Invoke-NcSysstat | Format-Table

-Steven