Replace Accent Characters

Here's an article on cleaning accents from strings:

lazywinadmin.com/.../powershell-remove-diacritics-accents.html

I setup something to deal with this as follows:

Create a change workflow to detect a user create.

Create a script activity that traps and modifies properties you want to fix and place that script active BEFORE the user create in the workflow.

Sample script activity:

# Top of script acitivity

Function RemoveAccents ($AccentedString)

{

# Insert cleaning code here

# Return the clean string

$CleanedString

}

Function CatchAccents ($Request){

# Catch the accent in the samaccountname

$NewUserSam = $Request.get("samaccountname")

$CleanNewUserSam = RemoveAccents $NewUserSam

# Replace the inbound samaccountname with the cleaned one

$Request.put("sanaccountname", $CleanNewUserSam)

$NewUserName = $Request.get("Name")

$CleanNewUserName = RemoveAccents $NewUserName

# Replace the inbound user name with the cleaned one

$Request.put("name", $CleanNewUserName)

# ...and so on

} # End of CatchAccents Function

# End of script activity

the $request.put("samaccountname", cleannewusersam) line is failing with the error message below.

Exception calling "Put" with "2" argument(s): "Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

i am trying to figure out what the name of the attribute would be in the $request. 

DEBUG: 20+ >>>> $Request.put("sAMAccountName", $CleanNewUserSam)

Call method '$Request.Put'
Arguments list:
[1] : Value=sAMAccountName : Type=System.String
[2] : Value=System.Object[] : Type=System.Object[] : IsMultivalued=True : Count=1
[0] : Value=flastaauyyiinnxyz : Type=System.String
[1] : Value=

ERROR:
At line: 20 char:9. Exception calling "Put" with "2" argument(s): "Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

Show us your code...

Full Code Below.

function onPreCreate($Request) {

function RemoveAccents ($AccentedString){
[Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString([Text.Encoding]::GetEncoding("Cyrillic").GetBytes($accentedString))
$CleanedString
}


$log = "C:\ARS-debug\Log-removeAccents.txt"
$date = Get-Date
Add-Content $log $date
Add-Content $log $request
$request


# Catch the accent in the samaccountname
$NewUserSam = $Request.get("samaccountname")
$CleanNewUserSam = RemoveAccents $NewUserSam
# Replace the inbound samaccountname with the cleaned one
$Request.put("sAMAccountName", $CleanNewUserSam)
Add-Content $log $cleannewusersam

# Catch the accent in the Name
#$NewUserName = $Request.get("Name")
#$CleanNewUserName = RemoveAccents $NewUserName
# Replace the inbound user name with the cleaned one
#$Request.put("name", $CleanNewUserName)
#Add-Content $log $cleannewusername

# Catch the accent in the First Name
$NewFName = $Request.get("givenName")
$CleanNewFName = RemoveAccents $NewFName
# Replace the inbound first name with the cleaned one
$Request.put("givenname", $CleanNewFName)
Add-Content $log $cleannewfname

# Catch the accent in the Last Name
$NewLname = $Request.get("sn")
$CleanNewLName = RemoveAccents $NewLname
# Replace the inbound last name with the cleaned one
$Request.put("sn", $CleanNewLName)
Add-Content $log $cleannewlname

# Catch the accent in the Last Name
$Newmailnickname = $Request.get("mailnickname")
$CleanNewmailnickName = RemoveAccents $Newmailnickname
# Replace the inbound last name with the cleaned one
$Request.put("mailnickname", $CleanNewmailnickName)
Add-Content $log $cleannewmailnickname

}

when i run the line below it removes the accent characters properly. it just seems like when i run the $request.put it fails. 

[Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString([Text.Encoding]::GetEncoding("Cyrillic").GetBytes($accentedString))

Change it to this:

$CleanedString = [Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString([Text.Encoding]::GetEncoding("Cyrillic").GetBytes($accentedString))