Adding unrelated column to export-csv -append

Question

I have a variable, $var, that holds Active Directory account names, and the AD groups that each account is a member of. The variable currently looks like this:

Username1
group1
group2
group3
Username2
group1
group2
Username3
group1
group2
group3
…

Now, I want to loop through $var. If the entry is a username (all of these start with adm, so that's easy), append it to a CSV. If it's a group (-notlike "adm*"), pull group samaccountname, description, and info, and append it to the same CSV. I have no problem exporting the account names to a CSV, and no problem separately exporting the group info to the CSV using the loop. I think there is an issue with exporting the group info to the CSV once an account name is in there; it seems to have an issue with the header or column name. Here is what I'm trying to use:

foreach ($z in $var) {
    if ($z -like "adm*") {
        $z | out-file c:\ahoy\supertest.csv -append
    } elseif ($z -notlike "adm*") {
        Get-ADGroup $z -Properties samaccountname,description,info |
        select samaccountname,description,info |
        Export-Csv c:\ahoy\supertest.csv -append -NoTypeInformation
    }
}

Now, here is what I want the CSV to look like:

Username1
group1name   group1description   group1info
group2name   group2description   group3info

Username2
group1name   group1description   group1info
group2name   group2description   group3info

Here is the error I get:

Export-Csv : Cannot append CSV content to the following file:
c:\ahoy\supertest.csv. The appended object does not have a property that
corresponds to the following column: adm007. To continue with mismatched
properties, add the -Force parameter, and then retry the command.
At line:6 char:103
+ ... ription,info | Export-Csv c:\ahoy\supertest.csv -append -NoTypeInformation
+                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (adm007:String) [Export-Csv], InvalidOperationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CannotAppendCsvWithMismatchedPropertyNames,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.ExportCsvCommand

Yes, the first account name is adm007. Hope you guys can help me.

Ansgar Wiechers Ansgar Wiechers · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-17T15:37:30

Your data format isn't CSV, so I wouldn't recommend using *-Csv cmdlets for processing it. Simply output custom-formatted lines with Out-File:

$var | ForEach-Object { 
    if ($_ -like "adm*") {
        $_
    } else {
        $group = Get-ADGroup $_ -Properties samaccountname,description,info
        '{0} {1} {2}' -f $group.samaccountname, $group.description, $group.info
    }
} | Out-File 'C:\ahoy\supertest.txt'

Adding unrelated column to export-csv -append

1 Answers