Exporting PowerShell Foreach Loop to HTML - html

Question

I've been trying to write a script that pings a list of computers from a text file and exports the output to a HTML file.
Using a ForEach loop and and if/else statement I have been able to get a working ping script working that displays in PowerShell but haven't been able to export the results to a html file.
When I run the script the HTML file opens but only displays the line "Here are the ping results for $date"
I'm pretty new to PowerShell so any kind of input or help would be appreciated!
$ComputersAry = Get-Content -Path "C:\Script\ping.txt"
$filepath = "C:\Script\"
$date = "{0:yyy_MM_dd-HH_mm}" -f (get-date)
$file = $filepath + "Results_" + $date + ".htm"
New-Item $filepath -type directory -force -Verbose
$Header = #"
<style>
TABLE {border-width: 1px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;border-collapse: collapse;}
TH {border-width: 1px;padding: 3px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;background-color: #6495ED;}
TD {border-width: 1px;padding: 3px;border-style: solid;border-color: black;}
</style>
<title>
LRS Ping Results
</title>
"#
Foreach ($MachineName in $ComputersAry) {
$PingStatus = Gwmi Win32_PingStatus -Filter "Address ='$MachineName'" | Select-Object StatusCode
if($PingStatus.StatusCode -eq 0){
$output = write-host "$MachineName,Ping Success!!,$Date"
} else {
$output = write-host "$MachineName,Ping FAIL, please investigate cause ASAP!!"
}
}
$pre= "Here are the ping results for $date"
$output | Select-Object Name, Status, Date | ConvertTo-HTML -Head $Header -PreContent $pre | Out-File $file
Invoke-Item $file

Answer 1

Nothing gets assigned to $output when you use Write-Host. Try this instead:
$output = "$MachineName,Ping Success!!,$Date"
...
$output = "$MachineName,Ping FAIL, please investigate cause ASAP!!"
Write-Host tells PowerShell to write directly to the host's display. This bypasses the Output (stdout) stream. While you could replace Write-Host with Write-Output almost no one uses Write-Output because the default stream every goes to is the output stream anyway. So when a string like "Hello World" reaches the end of the pipeline and there isn't an Out-File or Out-Printer it will by default get stuck into the Output stream and when the result of the pipeline execution is assigned to a variable, it gets whatever is in the output stream.

Answer 2

Try doing the following, save the code as a script and run it.
PS C:\Scripts> .\Demo.ps1 | ConvertTo-Html | Out-File C:\Scripts\out.htm
$result = '' | Select Online
$ComputersAry = GC C:\Scripts\2.txt
Foreach ($MachineName in $ComputersAry) {
$PingStatus = Gwmi Win32_PingStatus -Filter "Address ='$MachineName'" | Select-Object StatusCode
if($PingStatus.StatusCode -eq 0){
$result.Online = "$MachineName,Ping Success!!"
} else {
$result.Online = "$MachineName,Ping FAIL, please investigate cause ASAP!!"
}
$result
}