how to compare two csv files in powershell without specifying properties

Question

I have two csv files:

ipaddress,port
10.140.11.1,80
10.140.11.2,80

ipaddress,port
10.140.11.1,80
10.140.11.2,8008

The question is how to

Answer 1

You can obtain the list of CSV column properties via Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty, then pass that list to Compare-Object.

# get list of CSV properties
$props1 = $file1 | gm -MemberType NoteProperty | select -expand Name | sort | % {"$_"}
$props2 = $file2 | gm -MemberType NoteProperty | select -expand Name | sort | % {"$_"}

# first check that properties match (can omit this step if you know for sure they will be)
if(Compare-Object $props1 $props2)
{
    throw "Properties are not the same! [$props1] [$props2]"
}
# pass properties list to Compare-Object
else
{
    Compare-Object $file1 $file2 -Property $props1
}

Answer 2

The answer by latkin will not work. You will get the following exception:

Compare-Object : Cannot convert System.Management.Automation.PSObject to one of the following types {System.String, System.Management.Automation.ScriptBlock}. At line:8 char:19 + Compare-Object <<<< $file1 $file2 -Property $props1 + CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:) [Compare-Object], NotSupportedException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : DictionaryKeyUnknownType,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.CompareObjectCommand

It seems that one cannot pass a variable for -Property. It has to be a comma-seperated list of NoteProperties and it cannot be enclosed in single or double quotes.

I've been looking for a way to do this same thing and I still haven't found a way...