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How to export your own data using the PowerShell export–csv commandlet

You’ve created a bunch of your own data in a PowerShell script, and want to export it as a csv file. Maybe you’ve tried using the Export-Csv commandlet, but it didn’t work as you expected, so you’ve resorted to hacking strings about and ‘exporting’ it using Write-Host and Start-Transcript, or something similar?

The trick is to turn your data into objects. Once your data is in object form you can pass it straight to export-csv, or to any other commandlet. Here’s how I did it:

Scenario

I’m extracting data from Active Directory accounts to pass to a colleague who needs to email each account-holder. I’ve ended-up with the following PowerShell variables, each containing about 1000 records that I want to export as a .csv file.

My Powershell Variable	Where the data came from
$AdAccountname	SamAccountname
$PrimarySMTP	Extracted by looping through proxyAddresses looking for the one that starts “SMTP:”
$MonthsRegisted	Date calculation that compares registration date to now, and records the number of months

Approach

1. Create an empty array to store my stuff

2. Create an object for each line of our results

3. Add each column from each line as an attribute of this object

4. Pipe the array to export-csv

Steps

Decide on a name for my new object. I’ll go with $contactObject

Create an empty array ($resultsarray) to hold my 1000 new $contactObject objects

Loop for each “Contact”-----------------------------------------------------

Make a new empty “Contact” object

Add $AdAccountname attribute to “Contact”

Add $PrimarySMTP attribute to “Contact”

Add $MonthsRegisted attribute to “Contact”

Add the “Contact” object to the results array ($resultsarray)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the loop is finished, Export $resultsarray as a .csv file

PowerShell Code

Example Powershell code that will output data using the export-csv commandlet

Mark Glover : 20 May 2013 12:37 |  Tags: Export-Csv Powershell |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem