Powershell import-csv with empty headers

Question

I'm using PowerShell To import a TAB separated file with headers. The generated file has a few empty strings "" on the end of first line of headers. PowerShell fails with an error:

"Cannot process argument because the value of argument "name" is invalid. Change the value of the "name" argument and run the operation again"

because the header's require a name.

I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to manipulate the file to either remove the double quotes or enumerate them with a "1" "2" "3" ... "10" etc.

Ideally I would like to not modify my original file. I was thinking something like this

$fileContents = Get-Content -Path = $tsvFileName
$firstLine = $fileContents[0].ToString().Replace('`t""',"")
$fileContents[0] = $firstLine
Import-Csv $fileContents -Delimiter "`t"

But Import-Csv is expecting $fileContents to be a path. Can I get it to use Content as a source?

x0n · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-30 18:43:02Z

11

You can either provide your own headers and ignore the first line of the csv, or you can use convertfrom-csv on the end like Keith says.

ps> import-csv -Header a,b,c,d,e foo.csv

Now the invalid headers in the file is just a row that you can skip.

-Oisin

answered Jul 30, 2010 at 18:43

x0n

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Keith Hill · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-30 16:16:01Z

3

If you want to work with strings instead use ConvertFrom-Csv e.g.:

PS> 'FName,LName','John,Doe','Jane,Doe' | ConvertFrom-Csv | Format-Table -Auto

FName LName
----- -----
John  Doe
Jane  Doe

answered Jul 30, 2010 at 16:16

Keith Hill

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Jeff · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-04 18:12:52Z

3

I ended up needing to handle multiple instances of this issue. Rather than use the -Header and manually setting up each import instance I wrote a more generic method to apply to all of them. I cull out all of the `t"" instances of the first line and save the file to open as a $filename + _bak and import that one.

$fileContents = Get-Content -Path $tsvFileName

if( ([string]$fileContents[0]).ToString().Contains('""') )
{
  [string]$fixedFirstLine = $fileContents[0].ToString().Replace('`t""',"")
  $fileContents[0] = $fixedFirstLine
  $tsvFileName = [string]::Format("{0}_bak",$tsvFileName

  $fileContents | Out-File -FilePath $tsvFileName

}

Import-Csv $tsvFileName -Delimiter "`t"

answered Aug 4, 2010 at 18:12

Jeff

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Esperento57 · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-04 15:49:14Z

1

My Solution if you have much columns :

$index=0

$ColumnsName=(Get-Content "C:\temp\yourCSCFile.csv" | select -First 1) -split ";" | %{

$index++
"Header_{0:d5}" -f $index

}

import-csv "C:\temp\yourCSCFile.csvv" -Header $ColumnsName

answered Oct 4, 2019 at 15:49

Esperento57

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