Create a blank object for Test-Connection

Question

I recently answered a SO post about Test-Connection Powershell script: create loop for ResponseTime

When a Test-Connection cannot connect it will return a System.Net.NetworkInformation.PingException which is fine but I would like to record that as an empty object in output instead of skipping over it. I am aware that I could just select the properties I want and just create a custom object to output on the command line. That is how I approached the linked question but I feel I could do better.

My desire is to have output like this

Source        Destination     IPV4Address      IPV6Address                              Bytes    Time(ms) 
------        -----------     -----------      -----------                              -----    -------- 
WYVERN        localhost       127.0.0.1        ::1                                      32       0        
              failed host     169.254.158.1
WYVERN        localhost       127.0.0.1        ::1                                      32       0   

The two returns are proper from Test-Connection with a dummy line inserted. It has all the properties of a proper return from Test-Connection but, since it failed, only some of the properties have values. The only approach that I tried to accomplish this was to create another object of a similar type. Note (Test-Connection -Count 1 localhost).GetType().FullName returned System.Management.ManagementObject

$servers = "10.50.10.100","169.254.54.1"
$servers | ForEach-Object{
    Test-Connection $_ -Count 1 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
    If(!$testconnection){
        $blank = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.ManagementObject
        $blank.Destination = $_
    }
} 

Test-Connection returns more than just a basic System.Management.ManagementObject. So the problem is that a new-object will not have the same properties and, as a result, $blank.Destination = $_ will fail since "'Destination' cannot be found on this object". I also experimented with Test-Connection -Count 1 127.0.0.1 | gm -MemberType Property to try and create a property collection that I could use to build my blank object but that was not bearing an fruit. Most likely since I am not doing it right.

FYI

I am hoping to apply this logic in other places in my scripts. While test-connection is the cmdlet I am dwelling on in this question I am hunting for a broader solution.

Attempt

I have tried, unsuccessfully, something like this but the object are not being outputted together.

$props = @{}
Test-Connection -Count 1 127.0.0.1 | gm -MemberType Property | %{$props.($_.Name) = ""}
$props.destination = "FailedHostAddress"
New-Object -TypeName PSCustomObject -Property $props

Answer 1

Not sure if this helps or not:

$base = Test-Connection 127.0.0.1 -Count 1 
$blank = $base | select *
foreach ($prop in $base.psobject.Properties.Name)
{$blank.$prop = $null}

The select * will keep all of the properties, but convert them to note properties so they will be writeable, and you can set they to whatever you want them to be.

Answer 2

I would probably do something like this:

$servers = '10.50.10.100', '169.254.54.1', 'somehost'

$servers | % {
  $dst = $_
  try {
    Test-Connection $dst -Count 1 -ErrorAction Stop | % {
      $props = [ordered]@{
        'Source'      = $env:COMPUTERNAME
        'Destination' = $dst
        'IPv4Address' = $_.IPV4Address
        'IPv6Address' = $_.IPV6Address
        'Available'   = $true
      }
    }
  } catch {
    try {
      $addr = [ipaddress]$dst
      $props = [ordered]@{
        'Source'      = $env:COMPUTERNAME
        'Destination' = $dst
        'IPv4Address' = $addr.MapToIPv4()
        'IPv6Address' = $addr.MapToIPv6()
        'Available'   = $false
      }
    } catch {
      $props = [ordered]@{
        'Source'      = $env:COMPUTERNAME
        'Destination' = $dst
        'IPv4Address' = $null
        'IPv6Address' = $null
        'Available'   = $false
      }
    }
  }
  New-Object -Type PSObject -Property $props
}

The [ordered] hashes make the properties appear in the given order.

With PowerShell v3 or newer it can be simplified to this:

$servers | % {
  $dst = $_
  try {
    Test-Connection $dst -Count 1 -ErrorAction Stop | % {
      [PSCustomObject]@{
        'Source'      = $env:COMPUTERNAME
        'Destination' = $dst
        'IPv4Address' = $_.IPV4Address
        'IPv6Address' = $_.IPV6Address
        'Available'   = $true
      }
    }
  } catch {
    try {
      $addr = [ipaddress]$dst
      [PSCustomObject]@{
        'Source'      = $env:COMPUTERNAME
        'Destination' = $dst
        'IPv4Address' = $addr.MapToIPv4()
        'IPv6Address' = $addr.MapToIPv6()
        'Available'   = $false
      }
    } catch {
      [PSCustomObject]@{
        'Source'      = $env:COMPUTERNAME
        'Destination' = $dst
        'IPv4Address' = $null
        'IPv6Address' = $null
        'Available'   = $false
      }
    }
  }
}

The output will look somewhat like this:

Source  Destination   IPv4Address   IPv6Address                   Available
------  -----------   -----------   -----------                   ---------
WYVERN  10.50.10.100  10.50.10.100  fe80::3a8f:4854:248d:787f%11       True
WYVERN  169.254.54.1  169.254.54.1  ::ffff:169.254.54.1               False
WYVERN  somehost                                                      False