How to pipe foreach output to export-csv - powershell

Question

The code below outputs the following.
TYPE System.String
Length
100
How can I get it to actually output the content of the strings?
$fileIn | % { $array = $_.split(" ")
if ($array[0] -eq "User") {
$name = $array[1]+"."+$array[2]
$remaining = ""
for ($i = 3; $i -ne $array.length; $i++) {$remaining+=$array[$i]+" "}
Get-ADUser $name -properties description, company | % { $name + " - " +
$remaining + " - " + $_.description + " - " +
$_.company | Export-CSV $output}
}
}

Answer 1

Export-CSV is for exporting objects with properties to csv. You're trying to export a single string, which only includes a value and a Length property.
Also, - is not a valid delimiter in csv(at least not in .NET). The type information can be removed with a -NoTypeInformation-switch. Try this:
$fileIn | % { $array = $_.split(" ")
if ($array[0] -eq "User") {
$name = $array[1]+"."+$array[2]
$remaining = ""
for ($i = 3; $i -ne $array.length; $i++) {$remaining+=$array[$i]+" "}
Get-ADUser $name -properties description, company | % {
New-Object psobject -Property #{
"Name" = $name
"Remaining" = $remaining
"Description" = $_.Description
"Company" = $_.Company
}
}
}
} | Select-Object Name, Remaining, Description, Company |
Export-CSV $output -Delimiter ';' -NoTypeInformation
I tried to understand what you where trying to do here. To give you a summary of the changes:
I'm creating an object containing the information you want to export, for every row in your $filein
I'm setting the order of the properties with select-object AFTER an object for every line in $filein has been created
I'm exporting the array of objects to a csv-file with delimiter ; (just to show how you specify it), and without the type-information at the start. If you use export-csv inside the foreach loop, it would overwrite the file every time and you'd just have one row + header-row in the end. In PS3.0 you could have done it inside the loop, using -Append switch.
EDIT If you really need the string format, you need to use something else then Export-CSV, ex. Out-File with -Append switch. Ex:
$fileIn | % { $array = $_.split(" ")
if ($array[0] -eq "User") {
$name = $array[1]+"."+$array[2]
$remaining = ""
for ($i = 3; $i -ne $array.length; $i++) {$remaining+=$array[$i]+" "}
Get-ADUser $name -properties description, company | % {
"$name - $remaining - $($_.description) - $($_.company)" | Out-File -Append $output
}
}
}