Convert fixed width txt file to CSV / set-content or out-file -append?

Question

Input file is a fixed-width txt file. My client normally opens it in Excel and manually specifies the column breaks. I\'m hoping to replace certain blank spaces with a comma

Answer 1

Here is the working code. Fixed few bugs.

CD 'C:\\FOLDERPATH\'
$filter = "FILE_NAME_*.txt" 

$columns = 11,22,32,42,54 

# DO NOT NEED TO REVERSE [array]::Reverse($columns) #too lazy to re-write array after finding out I need to iterate in reverse

$files = get-childitem ./ |where-object {$_.Name -like $filter}
$newDelimiter = '|'

foreach($file in $files)
{
    $file

    $csvFile = 'C:\\FOLDERPATH\NEW_' + $file.BaseName + '.txt'
    if (!(get-childitem ./ |where-object {$_.Name -like $csvFile})) #check whether file has been processed
    { 

        $content | ForEach {
            $line = $_
            $counter = 0
            $columns | ForEach {
                $line = $line.Insert($_+$counter, $newDelimiter)  
                $counter = $counter + 1
                }
            $line = $line.Trim($newDelimiter)
            $line
        } | set-content $csvFile
    }

} 

Answer 2

I would think this comes up a lot. Here's an example that actually goes overboard and turns the fixed width file into objects. Then it's simple to export that to a csv. This should work for converting legacy commands like netstat as well.

$cols = 0,19,38,59,81,97,120,123 # fake extra column at the end, assumes all rows are that wide, padded with spaces
$colsfile = 'columns.txt'
$csvfile = 'cust.csv'

$firstline = get-content $colsfile | select -first 1
$headers = for ($i = 0; $i -lt $cols.count - 1; $i++) {
  $firstline.substring($cols[$i], $cols[$i+1]-$cols[$i]).trim()
}

# string Substring(int startIndex, int length)                                                                                         

Get-Content $colsfile | select -skip 1 | ForEach {
  $hash = [ordered]@{}
  for ($i = 0; $i -lt $headers.length; $i++) {
    $value = $_.substring($cols[$i], $cols[$i+1]-$cols[$i]).trim()
    $hash += @{$headers[$i] = $value}
  }
  [pscustomobject]$hash
} | export-csv $csvfile

Answer 3

Set-Content should work fine with some minor adjustments. Here is an example of how it should work (this is everything within your outer foreach loop):

$csvFile = $file.BaseName
    if (!(get-childitem ./ |where-object {$_.Name -like $csvFile})) #check whether file has been processed
    { 
        (gc $file | foreach {
                $_.Insert($columBreaks[0],",").Insert($columBreaks[1],",").Insert($columBreaks[2],",").`
                Insert($columBreaks[3],",").Insert($columBreaks[4],",").Insert($columBreaks[5],",").`
                Insert($columBreaks[6],",").Insert($columBreaks[7],",").Insert($columBreaks[8],",").`
                Insert($columBreaks[9],",").Insert($columBreaks[10],",")
            }) | set-content $csvFile #note parenthesis around everything that gets piped to set-content
    }

By the way, instead of splitting the filename on the '.', you can just get the name without the extension by using $file.BaseName:

$csvFile = $file.BaseName + ".csv"