append rows in CSV using powershell - powershell

Question

I have piece of code like below.
$month = Get-Date -Format "yyyy_MM"
$csv_location = "C:\brivo\csv\" + $month + ".csv"
if (!(Test-Path $csv_location))
{
$newcsv = {} | Select "Time","Name","Surname","Email","Telephone","Company","Department","Address","Postcode","City","State","Country" | Export-Csv $csv_location -NoTypeInformation
}
ForEach($line in $lines){
Try
{
$line = $line.Trim()
$file = "C:\brivo\json\" + $line
$data = Get-Content $file | ConvertFrom-Json
$timestamp = Get-Date -Format "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm"
$userline = $timestamp,$data.name,$data.surname,$data.email,$data.telephone,$data.company_name,$data.department,$data.address,$data.postcode,$data.city,$data.state,$data.country
$userline | out-file $csv_location -Append
}
Catch [Exception]
{
Write-Host $_.Exception | format-list -force
}
}
where first part is creating csv file if not exist with headers. and in second part $lines is file names like 123.json, 456.json... and all those json files has content like below.
{
"name": "kamal",
"sur_name": "wewetwe",
"email": "asdasd#gmail.com",
"telephone": "311234544567",
"company_name": "",
"department": "",
"address": "qwe",
"postcode": "1234 ad",
"city": "qwe",
"state": "GR",
"country": "NL"
}
what I want is to append all this json data to csv file. I have tried like above but it adds data in 1st column itself.

Answer 1

Don't try to initialize your CSV file without data using Export-Csv, because that won't work:
The dummy object with $null property values created by Select-Object results not in just in a header row, but invariably also in a data row representing the $null values, which end up as empty strings; in other words, you'll get a data row that looks like this: ,,,,,,,,,,,
Instead, make sure that the properties of the objects representing data rows you pass to Export-Csv are named for the desired CSV columns.
Don't try to construct your data rows as an array of values to save to the CSV file as plain text;[1] instead, construct a [pscustomobject] for each data row, which Export-Csv automatically converts to a data row, with the property names serving as column names (as you attempted with your header row).
As the code below shows, you can construct an object in each iteration and pipe it to a single Export-Csv call for efficiency.
Use the -Encoding parameter to control the output character encoding as needed; notably, in Windows PowerShell the default encoding is ASCII(!).
-Append is still used in that single call, because it looks like you want to append to a preexisting target file, if present.
Important:
The first object sent to Export-Csv locks in the list of columns and their names based on its properties; subsequent objects are expected to have the same set of properties (or a meaningful subset).
Similarly, when appending to a preexisting CSV file with -Append, the objects to append must match the existing columns, although you can override this requirement with -Force.
$month = Get-Date -Format "yyyy_MM"
$csv_location = "C:\brivo\csv\" + $month + ".csv"
# $lines is assumed to be an array of your input JSON file names.
$lines | ForEach-Object {
Try
{
$file = "C:\brivo\json\" + $_.Trim()
$data = Get-Content -ErrorAction Stop -Raw $file |
ConvertFrom-Json -ErrorAction Stop
# Construct and output an object with the desired values and the
# properties named for the desired CSV columns.
[pscustomobject] #{
Time = Get-Date -Format 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm'
Name = $data.name
Surname = $data.surname
Email = $data.email
Telephone = $data.telephone
Company = $data.company_name
Department = $data.department
Address = $data.address
Postcode = $data.postcode
City = $data.city
State = $data.state
Country = $data.country
}
}
Catch
{
Write-Host $_.Exception | format-list -force
}
} | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -Append $csv_location
[1] If you send an array of values to Out-File, each value becomes its own line in the output file. While you could address that with $userline -join ',', such plain-text processing is brittle, because values with embedded , chars. wouldn't be handled correctly.

Answer 2

**this is some example **
#add your json files on temp dir
$a= Get-ChildItem C:\Temp\PatchingServer*
foreach($g in $a){
$j=gc $g
$f=$j| ConvertFrom-Json
$obj=New-Object PSobject
$obj | Add-Member Noteproperty "Port" $f.Port
$obj | Add-Member Noteproperty "ApplicationName" $f.ApplicationName
$obj | Add-Member Noteproperty "MaintenanceWindow" $f.MaintenanceWindow
$obj | Add-Member Noteproperty "BusinessUnit" $f.BusinessUnit
$obj | Add-Member Noteproperty "AppOwner" $f.AppOwner
$obj | Add-Member Noteproperty "AppID" $f.AppID
$obj | Add-Member Noteproperty "Location" $f.Location
$obj | export-csv C:\Temp\Patching.csv -NoTypeInformation -Append
}