SimplySql | PowerShell module for querying various SQL databases | SQL Database library

The following simplified example shows you how you can pass multiple [pscustomobject] ([psobject]) instances from PowerShell to a Python script (passed as a string via -c in this case):

• by using JSON as the serialization format, via ConvertTo-Json...

• ... and passing that JSON via the pipeline, which Python can read via stdin (standard input).

Important:

• Character encoding:

  • PowerShell uses the encoding specified in the $OutputEncoding preference variable when sending data to external programs (such as Python), which commendably defaults to BOM-less UTF-8 in PowerShell [Core] v6+, but regrettably to ASCII(!) in Windows PowerShell.

  • Just like PowerShell limits you to sending text to an external program, it also invariably interprets what it receives as text, namely based on the encoding stored in [Console]::OutputEncoding; regrettably, both PowerShell editions as of this writing default to the system's OEM code page.

  • To both send and receive (BOM-less) UTF-8 in both PowerShell editions, (temporarily) set $OutputEncoding and [Console]::OutputEncoding as follows:
    $OutputEncoding = [Console]::OutputEncoding = [System.Text.Utf8Encoding]::new($false)

• If you want your Python script to also output objects, again consider using JSON, which on the PowerShell you can parse into objects with ConvertFrom-Json.