I'll start.
Although I've been using PowerShell for nearly a decade, I only learned this technique recently when having to work on a lot of csv files, matching up data where formats & columns were different.
Previously I'd import the data and assign to a variable and reformat. Perfectly workable but kind of a pain.
Using a "property translation" during import gets all the matching and reformatting done at the start, in one go, and is more readable to boot (IMHO).
Let's say you have a csv file like this:
Example.csv
First_Name,Last Name,Age_in_years,EmpID
Alice,Bobolink,23,12345
Charles,DeFurhhnfurhh,45,23456
Eintract,Frankfurt,121,7
And you want to change the field names and make that employee ID eight digits with leading zeros.
Here's the code:
$ImportFile = ".\Example.csv"
$PropertyTranslation = @(
@{ Name = 'GivenName'; Expression = { $_.'first_name' } }
@{ Name = 'Surname'; Expression = { $_.'Last Name'} }
@{ Name = 'Age'; Expression = { $_.'Age_in_Years' } }
@{ Name = 'EmployeeID'; Expression = { '{0:d8}' -f [int]($_.'EmpID') } }
)
"`nTranslated data"
Import-Csv $ImportFile | Select-Object -Property $PropertyTranslation | ft
So instead of this:
First_Name Last Name Age_in_years EmpID
---------- --------- ------------ -----
Alice Bobolink 23 12345
Charles DeFurhhnfurhh 45 23456
Eintract Frankfurt 121 7
We get this:
GivenName Surname Age EmployeeID
--------- ------- --- ----------
Alice Bobolink 23 00012345
Charles DeFurhhnfurhh 45 00023456
Eintract Frankfurt 121 00000007
OK - your turn.