Find the Parent path of an AD object

I recently needed to find the parent location of a computer, it’s parent distinguishedName. I wanted a function that would:
– work with a broader scope of AD objects, like users, OUs,…
– support piping objects from regular ActiveDirectory module or from itself
Here’s what I wanted to achieve visually

# Pipe an ADUser object
Get-ADUser 'Skywalker' | Get-ADObjectParentPath

# Pipe a DN string (you'd get the 'Users' OU)
'CN=Luc Skywalker,OU=Users,OU=Prod,DC=Star,DC=Wars,DC=com' | Get-ADObjectParentPath

# Do it twice, (you'd get the 'Prod' OU)
'CN=Luc Skywalker,OU=Users,OU=Prod,DC=Star,DC=Wars,DC=com' |
Get-ADObjectParentPath | Get-ADObjectParentPath

Here’s what I quickly wrote to meet my needs.

	Function Get-ADObjectParentPath {
	<#
	.SYNOPSIS
	Get the parent DN location of an AD object.
	.DESCRIPTION
	Get the parent DN location of an AD object.
	.PARAMETER DistinguishedName
	DistinghedNames objects passed as input (from AD cmdlets).
	.PARAMETER DN
	DistinghedNames strings passed as input
	.EXAMPLE
	Get-ADUser Skywalker | Get-ADObjectParentPath
	.EXAMPLE
	'CN=Luc Skywalker,OU=Users,OU=Prod,DC=Star,DC=Wars,DC=com' | Get-ADObjectParentPath
	#>
	[CmdletBinding(DefaultParameterSetName = 'String')]
	Param(
	[Parameter(ParameterSetName = 'Obj', Mandatory,ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName)]
	[ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
	$DistinguishedName,
	[Parameter(ParameterSetName = 'String', Mandatory,ValueFromPipeline)]
	[ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
	[string[]]$DN
	)
	Begin {
	if (-not(Test-Path -Path 'AD:\' -PathType Container)) {
	Write-Warning -Message 'Failed to find the AD drive, aborting'
	break
	}
	}
	Process {
	if ($DistinguishedName) {
	$DistinguishedName |
	ForEach-Object -Process {
	$parent = ((Get-Item "AD:\$($_)" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).PSParentPath | Split-Path -NoQualifier ) -replace '//RootDSE/',''
	if ($parent) {
	$parent
	}
	}
	}
	if ($DN ) {
	$DN |
	ForEach-Object -Process {
	if (Test-Path -Path "AD:\$($_)" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {
	$parent = ((Get-Item "AD:\$($_)" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).PSParentPath | Split-Path -NoQualifier ) -replace '//RootDSE/',''
	if ($parent) {
	$parent
	}
	} else {
	Write-Warning -Message "Path AD:\$($_) not found"
	}
	}
	}
	}
	End {}
	}

view raw Get-ADObjectParentPath.ps1 hosted with ❤ by GitHub