Read a CSV in powershell with a variable number of columns - powershell

Question

I have a CSV that contains a username, and then one or more values for the rest of the record. There are no headers in the file.
joe.user,Accounting-SG,CustomerService-SG,MidwestRegion-SG
frank.user,Accounting-SG,EastRegion-SG
I would like to read the file into a powershell object where the Username property is set to the first column, and the Membership property is set to either the remainder of the row (including the commas) or ideally, an array of strings with each element containing a single membership value.
Unfortunately, the following line only grabs the first membership and ignores the rest of the line.
$memberships = Import-Csv -Path C:\temp\values.csv -Header "username", "membership"
#{username=joe.user; membership=Accounting-SG}
#{username=frank.user; membership=Accounting-SG}
I'm looking for either of these outputs:
#{username=joe.user; membership=Accounting-SG,CustomerService-SG,MidwestRegion-SG}
#{username=frank.user; membership=Accounting-SG,EastRegion-SG}
or
#{username=joe.user; membership=string[]}
#{username=frank.user; membership=string[]}
I've been able to get the first result by enclosing the "rest" of the data in the csv file in quotes, but that doesn't really feel like the best answer:
joe.user,"Accounting-SG,CustomerService-SG,MidwestRegion-SG"

Answer 1

Well, the issue is that what you have isn't really a (proper) CSV. The CSV format doesn't support that notation.
You can "roll your own" and just process the file yourself, something like this:
$memberships = Get-Content -LiteralPath C:\temp\values.csv |
ForEach-Object -Process {
$user,$membership = $_.Split(',')
New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property #{
username = $user
membership = $membership
}
}
You could do a half and half sort of thing. Using your modification, where the groups are all a single field in quotes, do this:
$memberships = Import-Csv -Path C:\temp\values.csv -Header "username", "membership" |
ForEach-Object -Process {
$_.membership = $_.membership.Split(',')
$_
}
The first example just reads the file line by line, splits on commas, then creates a new object with the properties you want.
The second example uses Import-Csv to create the object initially, then just resets the .membership property (it starts as a string, and we split the string so it's now an array).
The second way only makes sense if whatever is creating the "CSV" can create it that way in the first place. If you have to modify it yourself every time, just skip this and process it as it is.