Powershell Import-csv with return character - powershell

Question

I tried the following to turn a text file into a document by leveraging import-csv where each item in the original document was a new line
Sample file.txt
James Cameron
Kirk Cobain
Linda Johnson
Code:
$array = import-csv file.txt | ConvertFrom-Csv -Delim `r
foreach ($Data in $array)
{
if (sls $Data Master.txt -quiet)
{Add-Content file.txt $Data}
}
It never created the document

Answer 1

Import-Csv takes a CSV and outputs PSCustomObjects. It's intended for when the file has a header row, and it reads that as the properties of the objects. e.g.
FirstName,LastName
James,Cameron
Kirk,Cobain
# ->
#{FirstName='James';LastName='Cameron'}
#{FirstName='Kirk';LastName='Cobain'}
etc.
If your file has no header row, it will take the first row and then ruin everything else afterwards. You need to provide the -Header 'h1','h2',... parameter to fix that. So you could use -Header Name, but your data only has one property, so there's not much benefit.
ConvertFrom-Csv is intended to do the same thing, but from CSV data in a variable instead of a file. They don't chain together usefully. It will try, but what you end up with is...
A single object, with a property called '#{James=Kirk}' and a value of '#{James=Linda}', where 'James' was taken from line 1 as a column header, and the weird syntax is from forcing those objects through a second conversion.
It's not at all clear why you are reading in from file.txt and adding to file.txt. But since you don't have a CSV, there's no benefit from using the CSV cmdlets.
$lines = Get-Content file.txt
$master = Get-Content master.txt
foreach ($line in $lines)
{
if ($master -contains $line)
{
Add-Content file2.txt $line
}
}
or just
gc file.txt |? { sls $_ master.txt -quiet } | set-content file2.txt
Auto-generated PS help links from my codeblock (if available):
gc is an alias for Get-Content (in module Microsoft.PowerShell.Management)
? is an alias for Where-Object
sls is an alias for Select-String (in module Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility)
Set-Content (in module Microsoft.PowerShell.Management)