Cover flat file using mapping to table (eg. csv) - powershell

Question

I have following several hundred entries in text file like this:
DisplayName : John, Smith
UPN : MY3043241#domain.local
Status : DeviceOk
DeviceID : ApplC39HJ3JPDTF9
DeviceEnableOutboundSMS : False
DeviceMobileOperator :
DeviceAccessState : Allowed
DeviceAccessStateReason : Global
DeviceAccessControlRule :
DeviceType : iPhone
DeviceUserAgent : Apple-iPhone4C1/902.206
DeviceModel : iPhone
... about 1500 entries of the above with blank line between each.
I'm looking to create a table with following headers from the above:
DisplayName,UPN,Status,DeviceID,DeviceEnableOutboundSMS,DeviceMobileOperator,DeviceAccessState,DeviceAccessStateReason,DeviceAccessControlRule,DeviceType,DeviceUserAgent,DeviceModel
The question is, is there a tool or some easy way to do this in excel or other application. I know it is easy task to write a simple algorithm, unfortunately I cannot go that route. Powershell would be an option but I'm not good at so if you have any tips on how to approach this that route please, let me know.

Answer 1

Although I am a big fan on Powershell one-liners, it wouldn't be of much help to someone trying to learn or start out with it. More so getting buy-in, in a corporate setting.
I have written a cmdlet, documentation included, to get you started.
function Import-UserDevice {
Param
(
# Path of the text file we are importing records from.
[string] $Path
)
if (-not (Test-Path -Path $Path)) { throw "Data file not found: $Path" }
# Use the StreamReader for efficiency.
$reader = [System.IO.File]::OpenText($Path)
# Create the initial record.
$entry = New-Object -TypeName psobject
while(-not $reader.EndOfStream) {
# Trimming is necessary to remove empty spaces.
$line = $reader.ReadLine().Trim()
# An empty line would indicate we need to start a new record.
if ($line.Length -le 0 -and -not $reader.EndOfStream) {
# Output the completed record and prepare a new record.
$entry
$entry = New-Object -TypeName psobject
continue
}
# Split the line through ':' to get properties names and values.
$entry | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name $line.Split(':')[0].Trim() -Value $line.Split(':')[1].Trim()
}
# Output the residual record.
$entry
# Close the file.
$reader.Close()
}
Here's an example of how you could use it to export records to CSV.
Import-UserDevice -Path C:\temp\data.txt | Export-Csv C:\TEMP\report.csv -NoTypeInformation

Answer 2

Powershell answer here... I used a test file C:\Temp\test.txt which contains:
DisplayName : John, Smith
UPN : MY3043241#domain.local
Status : DeviceOk
DeviceID : ApplC39HJ3JPDTF9
DeviceEnableOutboundSMS : False
DeviceMobileOperator :
DeviceAccessState : Allowed
DeviceAccessStateReason : Global
DeviceAccessControlRule :
DeviceType : iPhone
DeviceUserAgent : Apple-iPhone4C1/902.206
DeviceModel : iPhone
DisplayName : Mary, Anderson
UPN : AR456789#domain.local
Status : DeviceOk
DeviceID : ApplC39HJ3JPDTF8
DeviceEnableOutboundSMS : False
DeviceMobileOperator :
DeviceAccessState : Allowed
DeviceAccessStateReason : Global
DeviceAccessControlRule :
DeviceType : iPhone
DeviceUserAgent : Apple-iPhone4C1/902.206
DeviceModel : iPhone
So that I could have multiple records to parse. Then I ran it against this script which creates an empty array $users, gets the content of that file 13 lines at a time (12 fields + the empty line). Then it creates a custom object with no properties. Then for each of the 13 lines, if the line is not empty it creates a new property for that object we just created, where the name is everything before the : and the value is everything after it (with spaces removed from the end of the name and value). Then it adds that object to the array.
$users=#()
gc c:\temp\test.log -ReadCount 13|%{
$User = new-object psobject
$_|?{!([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($_))}|%{
Add-Member -InputObject $User -MemberType NoteProperty -Name ($_.Split(":")[0].TrimEnd(" ")) -Value ($_.Split(":")[1].TrimEnd(" "))
}
$users+=$User
}
Once you have the array $Users filled you could do something like:
$Users | Export-CSV C:\Temp\NewFile.csv -notypeinfo
That gives you a CSV that you would expect it to.

Answer 3

For an input file with just a couple hundred records I'd probably read the entire file, split it at empty lines, split the text blocks at line breaks, and the lines at colons. Somewhat like this:
$infile = 'C:\path\to\input.txt'
$outfile = 'C:\path\to\output.csv'
[IO.File]::ReadAllText($infile).Trim() -split "`r`n`r`n" | % {
$o = New-Object -Type PSObject
$_.Trim() -split "`r`n" | % {
$a = "$_ :" -split '\s*:\s*'
$o | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name $a[0] -Value $a[1]
}
$o
} | Export-Csv $outfile -NoType