Is there a way to merge similar lines using Powershell? - powershell

Question

Suppose I have two csv files. One is
id_number,location_code,category,animal,quantity
12212,3,4,cat,2
29889,7,6,dog,2
98900,
33221,1,8,squirrel,1
the second one is:
98900,2,1,gerbil,1
The second file may have a newline or something at the end (maybe or maybe not, I haven't checked), but only the one line of content. There may be three or four or more different varieties of the "second" file, but each one will have a first element (98900 in this example) that corresponds to an incomplete line in the first file similar to what is in this example.
Is there a way using powershell to automatically merge the line in the second (plus any additional similar) csv file into the matching line(s) of the first file, so that the resulting file is:
12212,3,4,cat,2
29889,7,6,dog,2
98900,2,1,gerbil,1
33221,1,8,squirrel,1

Answer 1

main.csv
id_number,location_code,category,animal,quantity
12212,3,4,cat,2
29889,7,6,dog,2
98900,
33221,1,8,squirrel,1
correction_001.csv
98900,2,1,gerbil,1
merge code used at the commandline, or in the .ps1 file of your choice
$myHeader = #('id_number','location_code','category','animal','quantity')
#Stage all the correction files: last correction in the most recent file wins
$ToFix = #{}
filter Plumbing_Import-Csv($Header){import-csv -LiteralPath $_ -Header $Header}
ls correction*.csv | sort -Property LastWriteTime | Plumbing_Import-Csv $myHeader | %{$ToFix[$_.id_number]=$_}
function myObjPipe($Header){
begin{
function TextTo-CsvField([String]$text){
#text fields which contain comma, double quotes, or new-line are a special case for CSV fields and need to be accounted for
if($text -match '"|,|\n'){return '"'+($text -replace '"','""')+'"'}
return $text
}
function myObjTo-CsvRecord($obj){
return ''+
$obj.id_number +','+
$obj.location_code +','+
$obj.category +','+
(TextTo-CsvField $obj.animal)+','+
$obj.quantity
}
$Header -join ','
}
process{
if($ToFix.Contains($_.id_number)){
$out = $ToFix[$_.id_number]
$ToFix.Remove($_.id_number)
}else{$out = $_}
myObjTo-CsvRecord $out
}
end{
#I assume you'd append any leftover fixes that weren't used
foreach($out in $ToFix.Values){
myObjTo-CsvRecord $out
}
}
}
import-csv main.csv | myObjPipe $myHeader | sc combined.csv -encoding ascii
You could also use ConvertTo-Csv, but my preference is to not have all the extra " cruft.
Edit 1: reduced code redundancy, accounted for \n, fixed appends, and used #OwlsSleeping suggestion about the -Header commandlet parameter
also works with these files:
correction_002.csv
98900,2,1,I Win,1
correction_new.csv
98901,2,1,godzilla,1
correction_too.csv
98902,2,1,gamera,1
98903,2,1,mothra,1
Edit 2: convert gc | ConvertTo-Csv over to Import-Csv to fix the front-end \n issues. Now also works with:
correction_003.csv
29889,7,6,"""bad""
monkey",2

Answer 2

This is a simple solution assuming there's always exactly one match, and you don't care about output order. Change the output path to csv1 to overwrite.
I added headers manually in both input files, but you can specify them in Import-Csv instead if you'd rather avoid changing your files.
[array]$MissingLine = Import-Csv -Path "C:\Users\me\Documents\csv2.csv"
[string]$MissingId = $MissingLine[0].id_number
[array]$BigCsv = Import-Csv -Path "C:\Users\me\Documents\csv1.csv" |
Where-Object {$_.id_number -ne $MissingId}
($BigCsv + $MissingLine) |
Export-Csv -Path "C:\Users\me\Documents\Combined.csv"