Differing Results

[scotthardwick]

Great and very helpful cmdlet. Thank you for coding and sharing!

I have one question. Is it a must that you have to utilize the pipeline? The first example below works perfectly, the second does not. Perhaps I am doing something wrong?

Example One $advisor_original | Merge-Object $advisor_update -on StudentID $advisor_original | Export-Csv 'C:\Users\Downloads\advising\advisor_20252_completewithupdate.txt'

Example Two $advisor_revised = Merge-Object -LeftObject $advisor_original -RightObject $advisor_update -on StudentID $advisor_revised | Export-Csv 'C:\Users\Downloads\advising\advisor_20252_completewithupdate.txt'

Using VERSION 3.8.3

[iRon7]

@scotthardwick

Is it a must that you have to utilize the pipeline?

No, you might also provide the LeftObject with a parameter. Meaning:

Merge-Object -LeftObject $advisor_original -RightObject $advisor_update -on StudentID

Should be the same as:

$advisor_original | Merge-Object $advisor_update -on StudentID

But in your first example you aren't assigning (or piping) the results of the command $advisor_original | Merge-Object $advisor_update -on StudentID to anywhere. In other words, I am not surprised that you get different results but I would actually expect the second one to work for you.

I just reconfirmed that everything works as expected using my own test data:

$Employee = ConvertFrom-SourceTable -ParseRightAligned ' # Install-Script -Name ConvertFrom-SourceTable
    Id Name    Country Department  Age ReportsTo
    -- ----    ------- ----------  --- ---------
     1 Aerts   Belgium Sales        40         5
     2 Bauer   Germany Engineering  31         4
     3 Cook    England Sales        69         1
     4 Duval   France  Engineering  21         5
     5 Evans   England Marketing    35
     6 Fischer Germany Engineering  29         4'

$Changes = ConvertFrom-SourceTable -ParseRightAligned '
    Id Name    Country Department  Age ReportsTo
    -- ----    ------- ----------  --- ---------
     3 Cook    England Sales        69         5
     6 Fischer France  Engineering  29         4
     7 Geralds Belgium Sales        71         1'

$Employee | Merge $Changes -On Id | Format-Table # Using the pipeline

Id Name    Country Department  Age ReportsTo
-- ----    ------- ----------  --- ---------
 1 Aerts   Belgium Sales        40         5
 2 Bauer   Germany Engineering  31         4
 3 Cook    England Sales        69         5
 4 Duval   France  Engineering  21         5
 5 Evans   England Marketing    35
 6 Fischer France  Engineering  29         4
 7 Geralds Belgium Sales        71         1

Merge -Left $Employee -Right $Changes -On Id | Format-Table # Using parameters

Id Name    Country Department  Age ReportsTo
-- ----    ------- ----------  --- ---------
 1 Aerts   Belgium Sales        40         5
 2 Bauer   Germany Engineering  31         4
 3 Cook    England Sales        69         5
 4 Duval   France  Engineering  21         5
 5 Evans   England Marketing    35
 6 Fischer France  Engineering  29         4
 7 Geralds Belgium Sales        71         1

For both examples you, might either first assign the result and that export it to a csv or directly pipe (... | Export-Csv ...) it to a csv:

$advisor_original | Merge-Object $advisor_update -on StudentID |
    Export-Csv 'C:\Users\Downloads\advising\advisor_20252_completewithupdate.txt'

or:

$Result = $advisor_original | Merge-Object $advisor_update -on StudentID
$Result | Export-Csv 'C:\Users\Downloads\advising\advisor_20252_completewithupdate.txt'

or:

Merge-Object -LeftObject $advisor_original -RightObject $advisor_update -on StudentID |
    Export-Csv 'C:\Users\Downloads\advising\advisor_20252_completewithupdate.txt'

or:

$Result = Merge-Object -LeftObject $advisor_original -RightObject $advisor_update -on StudentID
$Result | Export-Csv 'C:\Users\Downloads\advising\advisor_20252_completewithupdate.txt'

Please provide me with a Minimal, Reproducible Example including sample data, if it still doesn't work for you.