Powershell Out-File String with Double Quotes into Single Column CSV

Question

I would like to know how to Out-File String with Double Quotes into Single Column CSV by using PowerShell.

This is the csv File I am using with this header:

Name | output 1 | output 2 | output 3  |

Here is the PowerShell code I currently have:

$name = 'Peter Parker'
$out1 = 'testing'
$out2 = -join('"',"21,22,23", '"');
$out3 = 'output'
$text = "$name, $out1, $out2, $out3"
Write-Output $text
$text | Out-File .\test.csv -Encoding ascii -Append
Get-Content -Path .\test.csv

What I am looking for the result is like this:

Name          | output 1 | output 2     | output 3  |
Peter Parker  | testing  | "21, 22, 23" | output    |

But instead I got this result for the current code:

Name          | output 1 | output 2 | output 3 |
Peter Parker  | testing  | "21      | 22       | 23"   | output  |

Is there anyway or work around to achieve my objective?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Why not letting Powershell do the work for you? Powershell is easily able to deal with structured data and csv files.
Example:

[PSCustomObject]@{
    Name = 'Peter Parker'
    out1 = 'testing'
    out2 = ('"', "21,22,23", '"') -join ''
    out3 = 'output'
} |
    Export-Csv -Path .\test.csv -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter ','

Of course you can easily import this data again with:

Import-Csv -Path .\test.csv -Delimiter ','

and the result would be:

Name         out1    out2       out3
----         ----    ----       ----
Peter Parker testing "21,22,23" output

You may keep in mind that Powershell is made for administrators - not software developers. It tries to make things easy for you. ;-)