{"id":12171,"date":"2011-11-06T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2011\/11\/06\/use-powershell-to-automatically-create-a-csv-file\/"},"modified":"2011-11-06T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-06T00:01:00","slug":"use-powershell-to-automatically-create-a-csv-file","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/use-powershell-to-automatically-create-a-csv-file\/","title":{"rendered":"Use PowerShell to Automatically Create a CSV File"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary:<\/strong> Learn how to use Windows PowerShell to automatically create a CSV file.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson here. I am about finished playing around with CSV files for the time being. I do not always use the ConvertTo-CSV<\/b> or the Export-CSV<\/b> cmdlet. There are times that I write code and create my own CSV file from scratch. An example of this is the CreateCSVFile.ps1 script that follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

CreateCSVFile.ps1<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

1..5 | ForEach-Object -begin { “path,itemtype” } -process{ <\/span><\/p>\n

 “c:\\folder$_,directory” <\/span><\/p>\n

 for($i=0; $i -le 10; $i++) {“c:\\folder$_\\file$i.txt,file”}} | <\/span><\/p>\n

 Out-File c:\\fso\\filesAndFolders.csv -Encoding ascii -Force<\/span><\/p>\n

This script creates a CSV file that I can use to create a nested folder hierarchy. It is useful when testing certain applications, or for testing a Windows PowerShell script. I create five folders, and inside each folder I create 11 files. The folders are off the root and are named Folder1, Folder2, Folder3, Folder4, and Folder5. The files are named file0, file1, and so on through file10.<\/span><\/p>\n

When using the Foreach-Object<\/b>, I use the begin <\/i>parameter to perform an action once. Inside the process block, I create the path to the folder, and I include the itemtype<\/b> of directory. Next, I use a loop to create the path to the files. <\/span><\/p>\n

The newly created CSV file is shown in the following figure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

I use the Import-CSV<\/b> cmdlet to import the CSV file, and I pipe it to the New-Item<\/b> cmdlet as shown here:<\/span><\/p>\n

Import-Csv C:\\fso\\FilesAndFolders.csv | New-Item<\/span><\/p>\n

The command and associated output are shown in the following figure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the folders and associated files is shown in the following figure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

As you can see, there are times when it is easier to use a little bit of code to create the CSV file. This makes it a lot easier when it comes time to import the file and to pipeline it to another cmdlet.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

This is all for today. I hope you have a great day. See you next week.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

I invite you to follow me on <\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at <\/span>scripter@microsoft.com<\/span><\/a>, or post your questions on the <\/span>Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/span><\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Learn how to use Windows PowerShell to automatically create a CSV file.   Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson here. I am about finished playing around with CSV files for the time being. I do not always use the ConvertTo-CSV or the Export-CSV cmdlet. There are times that I write code and create my own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[169,3,4,61,45],"class_list":["post-12171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-csv-and-other-delimited-files","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-weekend-scripter","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Summary: Learn how to use Windows PowerShell to automatically create a CSV file.   Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson here. I am about finished playing around with CSV files for the time being. I do not always use the ConvertTo-CSV or the Export-CSV cmdlet. There are times that I write code and create my own […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}