How to export data to CSV in PowerShell?

Solution 1:

This solution creates a psobject and adds each object to an array, it then creates the csv by piping the contents of the array through Export-CSV.

$results = @()
foreach ($computer in $computerlist) {
    if((Test-Connection -Cn $computer -BufferSize 16 -Count 1 -ea 0 -quiet))
    {
        foreach ($file in $REMOVE) {
            Remove-Item "\\$computer\$DESTINATION\$file" -Recurse
            Copy-Item E:\Code\powershell\shortcuts\* "\\$computer\$DESTINATION\"            
        }
    } else {

        $details = @{            
                Date             = get-date              
                ComputerName     = $Computer                 
                Destination      = $Destination 
        }                           
        $results += New-Object PSObject -Property $details  
    }
}
$results | export-csv -Path c:\temp\so.csv -NoTypeInformation

If you pipe a string object to a csv you will get its length written to the csv, this is because these are properties of the string, See here for more information.

This is why I create a new object first.

Try the following:

write-output "test" | convertto-csv -NoTypeInformation

This will give you:

"Length"
"4"

If you use the Get-Member on Write-Output as follows:

write-output "test" | Get-Member -MemberType Property

You will see that it has one property - 'length':

   TypeName: System.String

Name   MemberType Definition
----   ---------- ----------
Length Property   System.Int32 Length {get;}

This is why Length will be written to the csv file.

Update: Appending a CSV Not the most efficient way if the file gets large...

$csvFileName = "c:\temp\so.csv"
$results = @()
if (Test-Path $csvFileName)
{
    $results += Import-Csv -Path $csvFileName
}
foreach ($computer in $computerlist) {
    if((Test-Connection -Cn $computer -BufferSize 16 -Count 1 -ea 0 -quiet))
    {
        foreach ($file in $REMOVE) {
            Remove-Item "\\$computer\$DESTINATION\$file" -Recurse
            Copy-Item E:\Code\powershell\shortcuts\* "\\$computer\$DESTINATION\"            
        }
    } else {

        $details = @{            
                Date             = get-date              
                ComputerName     = $Computer                 
                Destination      = $Destination 
        }                           
        $results += New-Object PSObject -Property $details  
    }
}
$results | export-csv -Path $csvFileName -NoTypeInformation

Solution 2:

simply use the Out-File cmd but DON'T forget to give an encoding type: -Encoding UTF8

so use it so:

$log | Out-File -Append C:\as\whatever.csv -Encoding UTF8

-Append is required if you want to write in the file more then once.

Solution 3:

what you are searching for is the Export-Csv file.csv

try using Get-Help Export-Csv to see whats possible

also Out-File -FilePath "file.csv" will work

Solution 4:

You can always use the

echo "Column1`tColumn2`tColumn3..." >> results.csv

You will need to put "`t" between the columns to separates the variables into their own column. Here is the way I wrote my script:

echo "Host`tState" >> results.csv
$names = Get-Content "hostlist.txt"
foreach ($name in $names) {
    $count = 0
    $count2 = 13490

    if ( Test-Connection -ComputerName $name -Count 1 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue ) {
        echo "$name`tUp" >> results.csv
    }
    else {
        echo "$name`tDown" >> results.csv
    }

    $count++
    Write-Progress -Activity "Gathering Information" -status "Pinging Hosts..." -percentComplete ($count / $count2 *100)

}

This is the easiest way to me. The output I get is :

Host|State
----------
H1  |Up
H2  |UP
H3  |Down

You can play around with the look, but that's the basic idea. The $count is just a progress bar if you want to spice up the look