First line of csv looks like this spaces are at after Path as well
author ,Revision ,Date ,SVNFolder ,Rev,Status,Path
I am trying to remove spaces only and rest of the content will be the same .
author,Revision,Date,SVNFolder,Rev,Status,Path
I tried below
Import-CSV .\script.csv | ForEach-Object {$_.Trimend()}
expanding on the comment with an example since it looks like you may be new:
$text = get-content .\script.csv
$text[0] = $text[0] -replace " ", ""
$csv = $text | ConvertFrom-CSV
Note: The solutions below avoid loading the entire CSV file into memory.
First, get the header row and fix it by removing all whitespace from it:
$header = (Get-Content -TotalCount 1 .\script.csv) -replace '\s+'
If you want to rewrite the CSV file to fix its header problem:
# Write the corrected header and the remaining lines to the output file.
# Note: I'm outputting to a *new* file, to be safe.
# If the file fits into memory as a whole, you can enclose
# Get-Content ... | Select-Object ... in (...) and write back to the
# input file, but note that there's a small risk of data loss, if
# writing back gets interrupted.
& { $header; Get-Content .\script.csv | Select-Object -Skip 1 } |
Set-content -Encoding utf8 .\fixed.csv
Note: I've chosen -Encoding utf8 as the example output character encoding; adjust as needed; note that the default is ASCII(!), which can result in data loss.
If you just want to import the CSV using the fixed headers:
& { $header; Get-Content .\script.csv | Select-Object -Skip 1 } | ConvertFrom-Csv
As for what you tried:
Import-Csv uses the column names in the header as property names of the custom objects it constructs from the input rows.
This property names are locked in at the time of reading the file, and cannot be changed later - unless you explicitly construct new custom objects from the old ones with the property names trimmed.
Import-Csv ... | ForEach-Object {$_.Trimend()}
Since Import-Csv outputs [pscustomobject] instances, reflected one by one in $_ in the ForEach-Object block, your code tries call .TrimEnd() directly on them, which will fail (because it is only [string] instances that have such a method).
Aside from that, as stated, your goal is to trim the property names of these objects, and that cannot be done without constructing new objects.
Read the whole file into an array:
$a = Get-Content test.txt
Replace the spaces in the first array element ([0]) with empty strings:
$a[0] = $a[0] -replace " ", ""
Write over the original file: (Don't forget backups!)
$a | Set-Content test.txt
$inFilePath = "C:\temp\headerwithspaces.csv"
$content = Get-Content $inFilePath
$csvColumnNames = ($content | Select-Object -First 1) -Replace '\s',''
$csvColumnNames = $csvColumnNames -Replace '\s',''
$remainingFile = ($content | Select-Object -Skip 1)
I am using ConvertTo-Csv to get comma separated output
get-process | convertto-csv -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter ","
It outputs like:
"__NounName","Name","Handles","VM","WS",".....
However I would like to get output without quotes, like
__NounName,Name,Handles,VM,WS....
Here is a way to remove the quotes
get-process | convertto-csv -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter "," | % {$_ -replace '"',''}
But it has a serious drawback if one of the item contains a " it will be removed !
Hmm, I have Powershell 7 preview 1 on my mac, and Export-Csv has a -UseQuotes option that you can set to AsNeeded. :)
I was working on a table today and thought about this very question as I was previewing the CSV file in notepad and decided to see what others had come up with. It seems many have over-complicated the solution.
Here's a real simple way to remove the quote marks from a CSV file generated by the Export-Csv cmdlet in PowerShell.
Create a TEST.csv file with the following data.
"ID","Name","State"
"5","Stephanie","Arizona"
"4","Melanie","Oregon"
"2","Katie","Texas"
"8","Steve","Idaho"
"9","Dolly","Tennessee"
Save As: TEST.csv
Store file contents in a $Test variable
$Test = Get-Content .\TEST.csv
Load $Test variable to see results of the get-content cmdlet
$Test
Load $Test variable again and replace all ( "," ) with a comma, then trim start and end by removing each quote mark
$Test.Replace('","',",").TrimStart('"').TrimEnd('"')
Save/Replace TEST.csv file
$Test.Replace('","',",").TrimStart('"').TrimEnd('"') | Out-File .\TEST.csv -Force -Confirm:$false
Test new file Output with Import-Csv and Get-Content:
Import-Csv .\TEST.csv
Get-Content .\TEST.csv
To Sum it all up, the work can be done with 2 lines of code
$Test = Get-Content .\TEST.csv
$Test.Replace('","',",").TrimStart('"').TrimEnd('"') | Out-File .\TEST.csv -Force -Confirm:$false
I ran into this issue, found this question, but was not satisfied with the answers because they all seem to suffer if the data you are using contains a delimiter, which should remain quoted. Getting rid of the unneeded double quotes is a good thing.
The solution below appears to solve this issue for a general case, and for all variants that would cause issues.
I found this answer elsewhere, Removing quotes from CSV created by PowerShell, and have used it to code up an example answer for the SO community.
Attribution: Credit for the regex, goes 100% to Russ Loski.
Code in a Function, Remove-DoubleQuotesFromCsv
function Remove-DoubleQuotesFromCsv
{
param (
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
[string]
$InputFile,
[string]
$OutputFile
)
if (-not $OutputFile)
{
$OutputFile = $InputFile
}
$inputCsv = Import-Csv $InputFile
$quotedData = $inputCsv | ConvertTo-Csv -NoTypeInformation
$outputCsv = $quotedData | % {$_ -replace `
'\G(?<start>^|,)(("(?<output>[^,"]*?)"(?=,|$))|(?<output>".*?(?<!")("")*?"(?=,|$)))' `
,'${start}${output}'}
$outputCsv | Out-File $OutputFile -Encoding utf8 -Force
}
Test Code
$csvData = #"
id,string,notes,number
1,hello world.,classic,123
2,"a comma, is in here","test data 1",345
3,",a comma, is in here","test data 2",346
4,"a comma, is in here,","test data 3",347
5,"a comma, is in here,","test data 4`r`nwith a newline",347
6,hello world2.,classic,123
"#
$data = $csvData | ConvertFrom-Csv
"`r`n---- data ---"
$data
$quotedData = $data | ConvertTo-Csv -NoTypeInformation
"`r`n---- quotedData ---"
$quotedData
# this regular expression comes from:
# http://www.sqlmovers.com/removing-quotes-from-csv-created-by-powershell/
$fixedData = $quotedData | % {$_ -replace `
'\G(?<start>^|,)(("(?<output>[^,"\n]*?)"(?=,|$))|(?<output>".*?(?<!")("")*?"(?=,|$)))' `
,'${start}${output}'}
"`r`n---- fixedData ---"
$fixedData
$fixedData | Out-File e:\test.csv -Encoding ascii -Force
"`r`n---- e:\test.csv ---"
Get-Content e:\test.csv
Test Output
---- data ---
id string notes number
-- ------ ----- ------
1 hello world. classic 123
2 a comma, is in here test data 1 345
3 ,a comma, is in here test data 2 346
4 a comma, is in here, test data 3 347
5 a comma, is in here, test data 4... 347
6 hello world2. classic 123
---- quotedData ---
"id","string","notes","number"
"1","hello world.","classic","123"
"2","a comma, is in here","test data 1","345"
"3",",a comma, is in here","test data 2","346"
"4","a comma, is in here,","test data 3","347"
"5","a comma, is in here,","test data 4
with a newline","347"
"6","hello world2.","classic","123"
---- fixedData ---
id,string,notes,number
1,hello world.,classic,123
2,"a comma, is in here",test data 1,345
3,",a comma, is in here",test data 2,346
4,"a comma, is in here,",test data 3,347
5,"a comma, is in here,","test data 4
with a newline","347"
6,hello world2.,classic,123
---- e:\test.csv ---
id,string,notes,number
1,hello world.,classic,123
2,"a comma, is in here",test data 1,345
3,",a comma, is in here",test data 2,346
4,"a comma, is in here,",test data 3,347
5,"a comma, is in here,","test data 4
with a newline","347"
6,hello world2.,classic,123
This is pretty similar to the accepted answer but it helps to prevent unwanted removal of "real" quotes.
$delimiter = ','
Get-Process | ConvertTo-Csv -Delimiter $delimiter -NoTypeInformation | foreach { $_ -replace '^"','' -replace "`"$delimiter`"",$delimiter -replace '"$','' }
This will do the following:
Remove quotes that begin a line
Remove quotes that end a line
Replace quotes that wrap a delimiter with the delimiter alone.
Therefore, the only way this would go wrong is if one of the values actually contained not only quotes, but specifically a quote-delimiter-quote sequence, which hopefully should be pretty uncommon.
Once the file is generated, you can run
set-content FILENAME.csv ((get-content FILENAME.csv) -replace '"')
Depending on how pathological (or "full-featured") your CSV data is, one of the posted solutions will already work.
The solution posted by Kory Gill is almost perfect - the only issue remaining is that quotes are removed also for cells containing the line separator \r\n, which is causing issues in many tools.
The solution is adding a newline to the character class expression:
$fixedData = $quotedData | % {$_ -replace `
'\G(?<start>^|,)(("(?<output>[^,"\n]*?)"(?=,|$))|(?<output>".*?(?<!")("")*?"(?=,|$)))' `
,'${start}${output}'}
I wrote this for my needs:
function ConvertTo-Delimited {
[CmdletBinding()]
param(
[Parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$true,Mandatory=$true)]
[psobject[]]$InputObject,
[string]$Delimiter='|',
[switch]$ExcludeHeader
)
Begin {
if ( $ExcludeHeader -eq $false ) {
#(
$InputObject[0].PsObject.Properties | `
Select-Object -ExpandProperty Name
) -Join $Delimiter
}
}
Process {
foreach ($item in $InputObject) {
#(
$item.PsObject.Properties | `
Select-Object Value | `
ForEach-Object {
if ( $null -ne $_.Value ) {$_.Value.ToString()}
else {''}
}
) -Join $Delimiter
}
}
End {}
}
Usage:
$Data = #(
[PSCustomObject]#{
A = $null
B = Get-Date
C = $null
}
[PSCustomObject]#{
A = 1
B = Get-Date
C = 'Lorem'
}
[PSCustomObject]#{
A = 2
B = Get-Date
C = 'Ipsum'
}
[PSCustomObject]#{
A = 3
B = $null
C = 'Lorem Ipsum'
}
)
# with headers
PS> ConvertTo-Delimited $Data
A|B|C
1|7/17/19 9:07:23 PM|Lorem
2|7/17/19 9:07:23 PM|Ipsum
||
# without headers
PS> ConvertTo-Delimited $Data -ExcludeHeader
1|7/17/19 9:08:19 PM|Lorem
2|7/17/19 9:08:19 PM|Ipsum
||
Here's another approach:
Get-Process | ConvertTo-Csv -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter "," |
foreach { $_ -replace '^"|"$|"(?=,)|(?<=,)"','' }
This replaces matches with the empty string, in each line. Breaking down the regex above:
| is like an OR, used to unite the following 4 sub-regexes
^" matches quotes in the beginning of the line
"$ matches quotes in the end of the line
"(?=,) matches quotes that are immediately followed by a comma
(?<=,)" matches quotes that are immediately preceded by a comma
I found that Kory's answer didn't work for the case where the original string included more than one blank field in a row. I.e. "ABC",,"0" was fine but "ABC",,,"0" wasn't handled properly. It stopped replacing quotes after the ",,,". I fixed it by adding "|(?<output>)" near the end of the first parameter, like this:
% {$_ -replace `
'\G(?<start>^|,)(("(?<output>[^,"]*?)"(?=,|$))|(?<output>".*?(?<!")("")*?"(?=,|$))|(?<output>))', `
'${start}${output}'}
I haven't spent much time looking for removing the quotes. But, here is a workaround.
get-process | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -Verbose -Path $env:temp\test.csv
$csv = Import-Csv -Path $env:temp\test.csv
This is a quick workaround and there may be a better way to do this.
A slightly modified variant of JPBlanc's answer:
I had an existing csv file which looked like this:
001,002,003
004,005,006
I wanted to export only the first and third column to a new csv file. And for sure I didn't want any quotes ;-)
It can be done like this:
Import-Csv -Path .\source.csv -Delimiter ',' -Header A,B,C | select A,C | ConvertTo-Csv -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter ',' | % {$_ -replace '"',''} | Out-File -Encoding utf8 .\target.csv
Couldn't find an answer to a similar question so I'm posting what I've found here...
For exporting as Pipe Delimited with No Quotes for string qualifiers, use the following:
$objtable | convertto-csv -Delimiter "|" -notypeinformation | select -Skip $headers | % { $_ -replace '"\|"', "|"} | % { $_ -replace '""', '"'} | % { $_ -replace "^`"",''} | % { $_ -replace "`"$",''} | out-file "$OutputPath$filename" -fo -en ascii
This was the only thing I could come up with that could handle quotes and commas within the text; especially things like a quote and comma next to each other at the beginning or ending of a text field.
This function takes a powershell csv object from the pipeline and outputs like convertto-csv but without adding quotes (unless needed).
function convertto-unquotedcsv {
param([Parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$true)]$csv, $delimiter=',', [switch]$noheader=$false)
begin {
$NeedQuotesRex = "($([regex]::escape($delimiter))|[\n\r\t])"
if ($noheader) { $names = #($true) } else { $names = #($false) }
}
process {
$psop = $_.psobject.properties
if (-not $names) {
$names = $psop.name | % {if ($_ -match $NeedQuotesRex) {'"' + $_ + '"'} else {$_}}
$names -join $delimiter # unquoted csv header
}
$values = $psop.value | % {if ($_ -match $NeedQuotesRex) {'"' + $_ + '"'} else {$_}}
$values -join $delimiter # unquoted csv line
}
end {
}
}
$names gets an array of noteproperty names and $values gets an array of notepropery values. It took that special step to output the header. The process block gets the csv object one piece at a time.
Here is a test run
$delimiter = ','; $csvData = #"
id,string,notes,"points per 1,000",number
4,"a delimiter$delimiter is in here,","test data 3",1,348
5,"a comma, is in here,","test data 4`r`nwith a newline",0.5,347
6,hello world2.,classic,"3,000",123
"#
$csvdata | convertfrom-csv | sort number | convertto-unquotedcsv -delimiter $delimiter
id,string,notes,"points per 1,000",number
6,hello world2.,classic,"3,000",123
5,"a comma, is in here,","test data 4
with a newline",0.5,347
4,"a delimiter, is in here,",test data 3,1,348
I'm having trouble making some changes to a series of CSV files, all with the same data structure. I'm trying to combine all of the files into one CSV file or one tab delimited text file (don't really mind), however each file needs to have 2 empty rows removed and two of the columns removed, below is an example:
col1,col2,col3,col4,col5,col6 <-remove
col1,col2,col3,col4,col5,col6 <-remove
col1,col2,col3,col4,col5,col6
col1,col2,col3,col4,col5,col6
^ ^
remove remove
End Result:
col1,col2,col4,col6
col1,col2,col4,col6
This is my attempt at doing this (I'm very new to Powershell)
$ListofFiles = "example.csv" #this is an list of all the CSV files
ForEach ($file in $ListofFiles)
{
$content = Get-Content ($file)
$content = $content[2..($content.Count)]
$contentArray = #()
[string[]]$contentArray = $content -split ","
$content = $content[0..2 + 4 + 6]
Add-Content '...\output.txt' $content
}
Where am I going wrong here...
your example file should be read, before foreach to fetch the file list
$ListofFiles = get-content "example.csv"
Inside the foreach you are getting content of mainfile
$content = Get-Content ($ListofFiles)
instead of
$content = Get-Content $file
and for removing rows i will recommend this:
$obj = get-content C:\t.csv | select -Index 0,1,3
for removing columns (column numbers 0,1,3,5):
$obj | %{(($_.split(","))[0,1,3,5]) -join "," } | out-file test.csv -Append
According to the fact the initial files looks like
col1,col2,col3,col4,col5,col6
col1,col2,col3,col4,col5,col6
,,,,,
,,,,,
You can also try this one liner
Import-Csv D:\temp\*.csv -Header 'C1','C2','C3','C4','C5','C6' | where {$_.c1 -ne ''} | select -Property 'C1','C2','C5' | Export-Csv 'd:\temp\final.csv' -NoTypeInformation
According to the fact that you CSVs have all the same structure, you can directly open them providing the header, then remove objects with the missing datas then export all the object in a csv file.
It is sufficient to specify fictitious column names, with a column number that can exceed the number of columns in the file, change where you want and exclude columns that you do not want to take.
gci "c:\yourdirwithcsv" -file -filter *.csv |
%{ Import-Csv $_.FullName -Header C1,C2,C3,C4,C5,C6 |
where C1 -ne '' |
select -ExcludeProperty C3, C4 |
export-csv "c:\temp\merged.csv" -NoTypeInformation
}