Powershell and some simple string manipulation

Question

need some help with building a powershell script to help with some basic string manipulation. I know just enough powershell to get in trouble, but can't figure out the syntax or coding to make this work.

I have a text file that looks like this -

Here is your list of servers:
server1
server2.domain.local
server3
Total number of servers: 3

I need to take that text file and drop the first and last lines (Always first and last.) Then I need to take every other line and basically turn it into a CSV file.

The final output should be a text file that looks like this -

server1,server2.domain.local,server3

Any suggestions on where to start? Thanks!

Wish I could accept all three - all three were helpful and each worked in their own way. Thanks all! — Pat
– Pat, Commented Jul 10, 2012 at 18:28

JPBlanc · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-10 03:44:44Z

1

You can try :

$a = Get-Content C:\temp\M.TXT # Where M.TXT is your original file
$a[1..($a.count-2)] | % {$s=""} {$s+=$_+","}{$s.trim(",") | Out-File m.csv} # M.CSV is the result file

edited Jul 10, 2012 at 3:44

answered Jul 10, 2012 at 3:25

JPBlanc

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4 Comments

Pat Over a year ago

Close - works perfect, other than we still have the last line "Total number of servers: 3" in the output. Any ideas?

Keith Hill Over a year ago

@JPBlanc, I suspect his file as an additional blank line at the end of the file.

Pat Over a year ago

Looks like that might be it. I just changed the count-2 to count-3. This worked. Thanks!

JPBlanc Over a year ago

@KeithHill you are right, I just not think about that at the moment.

Keith Hill · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-10 04:23:56Z

0

Here's a couple of other ways.

(Get-Content foo.txt | Where {$_ -notmatch '^\s*$'} | Select -Skip 1 | 
     Select -Skip 1 -Last 2E9) -join ',' > foo.csv

And if you happen to have the PowerShell Community Extensions (for Skip-Object):

(Get-Content foo.txt | Where {$_ -notmatch '^\s*$'} | 
     Skip-Object -First 1 -Last 1) -join ',' > foo.csv

Note that the Where {$_ -notmatch '^\s*$'} eliminates any blank lines.

answered Jul 10, 2012 at 4:23

Keith Hill

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3 Comments

Pat Over a year ago

Close - the first method works, other than we still have the last line "Total number of servers: 3" in the output. The second select -skip statment, which has the last 2e9 (What does that mean, anyway?) - are you trying to use that to skip the last line?

Keith Hill Over a year ago

@Pat I believe the -Skip/-Last parameter combo might be new in PowerShell v3. You can skip from the end of the file contents if you use -Skip in conjunction with -Last but in this case you want all of the lines. That's why I specify a large number 2E9 for the Last parameter - to get all the lines in the file except for the 1 skipped line at the end.

Pat Over a year ago

On the second skip 1 statement - I changed it to skip 2 and it worked like a charm. Thanks!

Shay Levy · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-10 06:46:59Z

0

You can use the range operator:

$content = Get-Content D:\Scripts\Temp\test1.txt
$content[1..($content.count-2)] -join ',' | Out-File servers.txt

It would be better to export to a csv file so you can import it back and operate on the server names:

$content = Get-Content D:\Scripts\Temp\test1.txt
$content[1..($content.count-2)] | Select-Object @{Name='ComputerName';e={$_}} | Export-Csv servers.csv -NoTypeInformation

answered Jul 10, 2012 at 6:46

Shay Levy

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2 Comments

Keith Hill Over a year ago

This approach won't work if there are any blank lines at the end of the file (or at the beginning or anywhere in between).

Pat Over a year ago

I imagine the count-3 would work here as well if there's a blank line. Thanks!

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