Script output that will work on the console as well as with Export-Csv

Question

I\'m working on a basic PowerShell script that inputs a pair of dates then gets all accounts with passwords expiring between those times. I\'d like to output the data to the con

Answer 1

Replace

Write-Output ($accts | Format-Table | Out-String)

with

$accts

That way your users can run your script any way they like, e.g.

.\your_script.ps1 | Format-Table
.\your_script.ps1 | Format-List
.\your_script.ps1 | Export-Csv
.\your_script.ps1 | Out-GridView
...

Format-Table | Out-String converts your output to a single string whereas Export-Csv expects a list of objects as input (the object properties then become the columns of the CSV). If Export-Csv is fed a string, the only property is Length, so you get a CSV with one column and one record.

Answer 2

$accts | ConvertTo-Csv | Tee -File output.csv | ConvertFrom-Csv