How to export data to CSV in PowerShell?

Question

foreach ($computer in $computerlist) {
    if((Test-Connection -Cn $computer -BufferSize 16 -Count 1 -ea 0 -quiet))
    {
        foreach ($file in $REMOVE) {
            Remove-Item "\$computer$DESTINATION$file" -Recurse
            Copy-Item E:Codepowershellshortcuts* "\$computer$DESTINATION"            
        }
    } else {
        Write-Host "\$computer$DESTINATION"
    }
}

I want to export Write-Host "$computer$DESTINATION" to the CSV files so I know which computers were offline when the script ran.

I am running this from a Windows 7 machine

Answer 1

This solution creates a psobject and adds each object to an array, it then creates the csv by piping the contents of the array through Export-CSV.

$results = @()
foreach ($computer in $computerlist) {
    if((Test-Connection -Cn $computer -BufferSize 16 -Count 1 -ea 0 -quiet))
    {
        foreach ($file in $REMOVE) {
            Remove-Item "\$computer$DESTINATION$file" -Recurse
            Copy-Item E:Codepowershellshortcuts* "\$computer$DESTINATION"            
        }
    } else {

        $details = @{            
                Date             = get-date              
                ComputerName     = $Computer                 
                Destination      = $Destination 
        }                           
        $results += New-Object PSObject -Property $details  
    }
}
$results | export-csv -Path c:empso.csv -NoTypeInformation

If you pipe a string object to a csv you will get its length written to the csv, this is because these are properties of the string, See here for more information.

This is why I create a new object first.

Try the following:

write-output "test" | convertto-csv -NoTypeInformation

This will give you:

"Length"
"4"

If you use the Get-Member on Write-Output as follows:

write-output "test" | Get-Member -MemberType Property

You will see that it has one property - 'length':

   TypeName: System.String

Name   MemberType Definition
----   ---------- ----------
Length Property   System.Int32 Length {get;}

This is why Length will be written to the csv file.

---

Update: Appending a CSV Not the most efficient way if the file gets large...

$csvFileName = "c:empso.csv"
$results = @()
if (Test-Path $csvFileName)
{
    $results += Import-Csv -Path $csvFileName
}
foreach ($computer in $computerlist) {
    if((Test-Connection -Cn $computer -BufferSize 16 -Count 1 -ea 0 -quiet))
    {
        foreach ($file in $REMOVE) {
            Remove-Item "\$computer$DESTINATION$file" -Recurse
            Copy-Item E:Codepowershellshortcuts* "\$computer$DESTINATION"            
        }
    } else {

        $details = @{            
                Date             = get-date              
                ComputerName     = $Computer                 
                Destination      = $Destination 
        }                           
        $results += New-Object PSObject -Property $details  
    }
}
$results | export-csv -Path $csvFileName -NoTypeInformation