A cmdlet to format the output of PowerShell's Compare-Object cmdlet.

Format-Compare.ps1

<#
.Synopsis
   Formats the output of Compare-Object for even results
.DESCRIPTION
   When the compared set has even entries use this commandlet to promote the output Compare-Object to Name,Original,Changed using the SideIndicator
.PARAMETER Compare
    The output of Compare-Object
.PARAMETER PathAsName
    The path to use to create the Name column in the output
.EXAMPLE
   Compare-Object -ReferenceObject $original -DifferenceObject $changed |Format-Compare -PathAsName "Node.Name"
.EXAMPLE
   Compare-Object -ReferenceObject $original -DifferenceObject $changed |Format-Compare
.INPUTS
   The output of Compare-Object
.NOTES
    Not sure if the functionality can be extended for a non-even compared sets. Looking for ideas.
.LINK
    Compare-Object
#>
function Format-Compare
{
    [CmdletBinding(DefaultParameterSetName='Parameter Set 1')]
    Param
    (
        # Param1 help description
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,ValueFromPipeline=$true)]
        [PSObject[]]$Compare,
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$false)]
        [string]$PathAsName
    )

    Begin
    {
        $right=@()
        $left=@()
    }
    Process
    {
        #Extract all the records that are changed in the DifferenceObject parameter of Compare-Object
        $right+=$Compare|Where-Object -Property SideIndicator -EQ "=>"
        #Extract all the records that are changed in the ReferenceObject parameter of Compare-Object
        $left+=$Compare|Where-Object -Property SideIndicator -EQ "<="
    }
    End
    {
        if($left.Count -ne $right.Count){
            throw "Can't format object with uneven =>/<= result"
        }
        $output=@()
        for($i=0;$i -lt $left.Count;$i++)
        {
            $hash=@{
                Original=$left[$i].InputObject
                Changed=$right[$i].InputObject
            }
            if($PathAsName)
            {
                $hash.Name=Invoke-Expression "`$left[$i].InputObject.$PathAsName"
                $output+=New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $hash |Select-Object Name,Original,Changed
            }
            else
            {
                $output+=New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $hash |Select-Object Original,Changed
            }
        }
        $output
    }
}

Currently this gist works only for even compare result sets of Compare-Object. That means that the reference (-ReferenceObject) and difference (-DifferenceObject) objects have only changes to identical values. For example compare xml fragments that have only changes and not added or removed nodes.

I think there is more potential here but I'm looking for ideas also.