Outputting a 2 column csv file using Powershell

Question

I have 2 .csv files I'm comparing and I'm saving the results in a text file using

Foreach(..data in dataSet..) {
    #Setting variables

  if("$samInitials" -eq "$ambInitials") {

    "$firstName $lastName`t$samName`n" | Add-Content $outputFile

    #$account = New-Object psobject -Property @{'Name'="$firstName $lastName"; 'SamName'="$samName"}
  }
  #$outputFile += $account
}
#$outputFile | Export-Csv $outputCSVPath -NoTypeInformation
#commented out lines are the attempt to write to .csv file

How can I make (create a new if file doesn't exist) this append to a 2 column .csv file where column 1 is the first & last name and column 2 is the samName? If its easier I can manually create the .csv and name the columns myself but I have no idea how to go about doing this.

I'm literally brand new to Powershell so sorry if this is obvious but I've been working on this for the past 5 hours (aka since I've learned Powershell) and just need some help with this last step

see get-help *-csv*

Kory Gill
– Kory Gill

2018-10-23 22:39:07 +00:00
Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 22:39 — Kory Gill
– Kory Gill, Commented Oct 23, 2018 at 22:39

Robert Cotterman · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-24 14:14:04Z

2

just replace

"$firstName $lastName\: $samName `n" | Add-Content $outputFile

with

New-Object psobject -Property @{'Name'="$firstName $lastName";
                                                             'SamName'=$samName} | 
    export-csv c:\output.csv -append -notypeinformation

This creates a custom object, which powershell can then directly convert to csv

Also don't feel bad, this isn't obvious.

edited Oct 24, 2018 at 14:14

answered Oct 24, 2018 at 1:19

Robert Cotterman

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2 Comments

Tommy K Over a year ago

I had a Add-Content -Path $outputCSVPath -Value '"Name", "SAM Name"' before the foreach loop from a previous attempt. After I got rid of this the "just replace" suggestion worked, but for your loop suggestion I get a .csv with one column named Length and a value of 22970 (which writing to .txt resulted in 51 lines so I'm not sure what that number relates to). Gave you the checkmark anyways for the first solution although would be nice to understand the loop method better

Robert Cotterman Over a year ago

The first suggestion works and appends, since powershell can get finicky and i don't have a setup to test it right now, i'll just remove my second suggestion.

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