Powershell Searching within a text file and exporting horizontally to CSV - powershell

Question

I have a big file which content somme blocks of text data like this.
[SERVER1]
LIBELLE=DATA, SOMME DATA
VARIABLES=A,B,C,D,E
PHYSICAL NAME=E:\SOMME\PATH\FILE.INI
ARTICLE SIZE=50
MACHINE=SOME SERVER
PARAMETER =
OPTION =
[SERVER2]
LIBELLE=DATA2, SOMME DATA2
VARIABLES=A,B,C,D,E
PHYSICAL NAME=Z:\SOMME\PATH\FILE2.INI
ARTICLE SIZE=150
MACHINE=SOME SERVER XY
PARAMETER =
OPTION 1 = VOID
OPTION 2 =
OPTION 3 =
OPTION 4 =
OPTION 5 =
What i would like to do is retrieving every block [SERVERX] and put it into a CSV file in this format (horizontally)
ColumnA__ | ColumnB (LIBELLE)___ | ColumnC (VARIABLES) | ColumnD ect...
[SERVER1] | DATA1, SOMME DATA1 | A,B,C,D,E___________ | Ect...
[SERVER2] | DATA2, SOMME DATA2 | A,B,C,D,E___________ | Ect...
I've tried this, the output work as i want but it need to be automated and exported to scv, which doesn't work for me.
$mydata = Get-Content my_file.txt
write-Host $mydata[0] $mydata[1] $mydata[2] $mydata[3] $mydata[4] $mydata[5] | Export-Csv -Path $rep\results.csv -Force -UseCulture -NoTypeInformation
Tried also somthing with select-string but i dont know if this is the right way to do my job..
select-String -path $my_file -Pattern '\[*\]', 'IDENTIFIANTS=','LIBELLE=','VARIABLES=' | Select-Object -Property LineNumber, Line | Export-Csv -Path $rep\results.csv -Force -UseCulture -NoTypeInformation
Thanks for your advices.

Answer 1

So, I would read the whole file in as a multi-line string using the -Raw switch for Get-Content. Then split the file up based on the [ character to denote records. The get the properties from the ConvertFrom-StringData cmdlet (have to prepend "SERVER=" to each record), and make an object from it. Then we find out what all properties any given record can have, make sure to add them all to the first record if it doesn't have it (this is done because when you export to CSV it bases the columns off of the first entries' property list). Then you can export a CSV.
$Data = (Get-Content my_file.txt -Raw) -split "(\[[^[]+)" | ?{![string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($_)}
$Records = $Data -replace '\\','\\'|%{$Record="SERVER="+$_.trim()|ConvertFrom-StringData;New-Object PSObject -Prop $Record}
$Props = $Records|%{$_.psobject.properties.name}|select -Unique
$Props | Where{$_ -notin $Records[0].PSObject.Properties.Name}|%{Add-Member -InputObject $Records[0] -NotepropertyName $_ -NotepropertyValue $Null}
$Records|Export-CSV .\my_file.csv -notype
Edit: For those of you out there running PowerShell 2.0 (3 versions out of date at this point in time), you can't use the -Raw parameter. Here's the alternative:
$Data = (Get-Content my_file.txt) -Join "`r`n" -split "(\[[^[]+)" | ?{![string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($_)}
Alternative: Thanks #Matt for the suggestion, it is always good to have a different point of view on these things. As Matt suggested, you can use Out-String to combine the array of strings that Get-Content generates, and end up with a single multi-line string. Here's the usage!
$Data = (GC my_file.txt | Out-String) -split "(\[[^[]+)" | ?{![string]::IsNullOrWhiteSpace($_)}