CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershelltexttabsimport-csv
scatterbits
scatterbits

Reputation: 331

PowerShell: slice and dice tab delimited file

I have a tab delimited text file produced by my backup software. I want to be able to import it as a PowerShell array using Import-CSV.

The problem is that the first 5 lines of the exported file prevent PowerShell from recognizing it as an array:

#List of Media
#Cell Manager: hpdp.domain.local
#Creation Date: 11/08/2018 9:36:09 AM
# Headers
# Medium ID Label   Location    Status  Protection  Used [MB]   Total [MB]  Last Used   Last Used_t Pool    Type

The way I am able to 'fix' this is by using notepad to delete the first four lines and remove the first # from the header line. The file then looks like this:

Medium ID   Label   Location    Status  Protection  Used [MB]   Total [MB]  Last Used   Last Used_t Pool    Type
id1:id2:id3:id5 [hostname] labelname_31 [Library:     5]    Good    13/08/2018 10:01:41 PM  762699.50   762699.50   14/07/2018 10:00:36 PM  1531828836  Tape Drive Pool LTO-Ultrium

I am trying to find a way to get PowerShell to make this change. For example, I try to remove the first four lines as a first step using this line:

(Get-Content $file | Select-Object -Skip 4) | Set-Content $file

The file seems to then lose its tabs so it is no longer delimited.

How can I remove the lines as well as the first # without losing the tabs? Thanks in advance!

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1201

Answers (1)

Theo
Theo

Reputation: 61068

This can be done by something like this

$data = Get-Content $file | Select-Object -Skip 4 
$data[0] = $data[0] -replace '^#\s*', ''

now you can overwrite the file if you want to:

$data | Set-Content $file -Force

or use it directly as object in Powershell (a csv object is an array of PSObjects)

$csv = ($data -join [environment]::NewLine) | ConvertFrom-Csv -Delimiter "`t"

or use this converted object to write out the file again

$csv | Export-Csv -Path $file -Delimiter "`t" -NoTypeInformation -Force

Upvotes: 2

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