Extract data from excel using powershell - powershell

Question

sample excel image I need export data from a column in excel and exclude some characters then export to a txt file.(excel Sample attached). Basically I need to extract ONLY names in the Orders column and output to a text file, here is what I have so far:
#Specify the Sheet name
$SheetName = "Today Order"
# Create an Object Excel.Application using Com interface
$objExcel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application
$objExcel.Visible = $false
# Open the Excel file and save it in $WorkBook
$WorkBook = $objExcel.Workbooks.Open($FilePath)
# Load the WorkSheet 'Change Auditor Events'
$WorkSheet = $WorkBook.sheets.item($SheetName)
#====
I can use the replace command below to trim off unneeded characters in the Orders column, I only need the names
-replace "order from " -replace " California"
How can I assign variable to the orders column and process each line then use the out-file to export? Or do you have any other good suggestion to do this.
Thanks in Advance.

Answer 1

I assumed your data is in column A. Correct as needed.
I used regex to pull the name out from your sentence. -Match writes to the magic variable "$matches"
It's worth mentioning that using COM objects is the "hard" way to do this.
The very easy way is saving as csv.
The easy way is using a module that handles .xlsx files.
#Specify the Sheet name
$SheetName = "Today Order"
$FilePath = "C:\whatever.xlsx"
# Create an Object Excel.Application using Com interface
$objExcel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application
$objExcel.Visible = $false
# Open the Excel file and save it in $WorkBook
$WorkBook = $objExcel.Workbooks.Open($FilePath)
# Load the WorkSheet 'Change Auditor Events'
$WorkSheet = $WorkBook.sheets.item($SheetName)
$MyData = [System.Collections.Generic.List[string]]::new() #Potentially better performance than immutable array if you're running this on thousands of rows.
for($i = 2; $i -le $WorkSheet.UsedRange.Rows.Count; $i++) {
($Worksheet.Range("a$i").text) -match 'from (?<name>.+) in'
$MyData.Add($Matches.name)
}
$MyData | Out-File "C:\output.txt"