How to dump the foreach loop output into a file in PowerShell? - powershell

Question

I have wrote the following script to read the CSV file to perform the custom format of output.
Script is below:
$Content = Import-Csv Alert.csv
foreach ($Data in $Content) {
$First = $Data.DisplayName
$Second = $Data.ComputerName
$Third = $Data.Description
$Four = $Data.Name
$Five = $Data.ModifiedBy
$Six = $Data.State
$Seven = $Data.Sev
$Eight = $Data.Id
$Nine = $Data.Time
Write-Host "START;"
Write-Host "my_object="`'$First`'`;
Write-Host "my_host="`'$Second`'`;
Write-Host "my_long_msg="`'$Third`'`;
Write-Host "my_tool_id="`'$Four`'`;
Write-Host "my_owner="`'$Five`'`;
Write-Host "my_parameter="`'$Four`'`;
Write-Host "my_parameter_value="`'$Six`'`;
Write-Host "my_tool_sev="`'$Seven`'`;
Write-Host "my_tool_key="`'$Eight`'`;
Write-Host "msg="`'$Four`'`;
Write-Host "END"
}
The above script executing without any error.
Tried with Out-File and redirection operator in PowerShell to dump the output into a file, but I'm not finding any solution.

Answer 1

Write-Host writes to the console. That output cannot be redirected unless you run the code in another process. Either remove Write-Host entirely or replace it with Write-Output, so that the messages are written to the Success output stream.
Using a foreach loop also requires additional measures, because that loop type doesn't support pipelining. Either run it in a subexpression:
(foreach ($Data in $Content) { ... }) | Out-File ...
or assign its output to a variable:
$output = foreach ($Data in $Content) { ... }
$output | Out-File ...
Another option would be replacing the foreach loop with a ForEach-Object loop, which supports pipelining:
$Content | ForEach-Object {
$First = $_.DisplayName
$Second = $_.ComputerName
...
} | Out-File ...
Don't use Out-File inside the loop, because repeatedly opening the file will perform poorly.