Combining different columns powershell - powershell

Question

i need to combine csv-entries which is in this format:
ID, "Name", "Sex", "Age"
1, "John", "m", "24"
2, "John", "m", "28"
2, "John", "m", "30"
3, "Melissa", "f", "24"
3, "Melissa", "f", "26"
to:
ID, "Name", "Sex", "Age", "Age" ,"Age"
1, "John", "m", "24", "28", "30"
3, "Melissa", "f", "24", "26"
What i got so far:
$csvData = Import-Csv 'test.csv'
$csvData | Group-Object "ID" | ForEach-Object {
[PsCustomObject]#{
"ID" = $_.Name
"Sex" = $_.Group."Sex" -join '","'
"Age" = $_.Group."Age" -join '","'
}
} | Export-Csv 'test_output.csv' -NoTypeInformation
which returns me this:
"ID","Name", "Sex", "Age"
"1", "John", "John", "John", "m", "m", "m", "24", "28", "30"
"2", "Melissa", "Melissa", , "f", "f", "24", "26"
How can i solve this?

Answer 1

If I understand you right, then this is only meant to be an exercise in PowerShell foo and not in meaningful data manipulation.
Under that premise: One way you could create your desired output (and end up with a valid csv), is to add numbered properties for each "Age" value that you want to include in the consolidated objects.
$csvData = Import-Csv 'test.csv'
$csvData | Group-Object Name | ForEach-Object {
$obj = [ordered]#{
ID = $_.Group[0].ID
Name = $_.Name
Sex = $_.Group[0].Sex
}
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $_.Group.Count; $i++) {
$obj["Age$($i+1)"] = $_.Group[$i].Age
}
[PsCustomObject]$obj
} | Export-Csv 'test_output.csv' -NoTypeInformation