Reading from CSV produces duplicate entries in variable - csv

Question

I have this bit of code :
$servers = Import-Csv "sources.csv"
$computername = $servers.server
$ServiceName = $servers.services
sources.csv contains the following..
Server,Services
BRWS40,winrm
BRWS84,winrm
I have then a foreach, and the Write-Host is within that, it output this:
Write-Host "$computername - $ServiceName" -ForegroundColor black -BackgroundColor red
Output from above I get is:
BRWS40 BRWS84 - winrm winrm
Whereas I was wanting to have one computer and service per line.
BRWS40 - winrm
What am I doing wrong?
I amended the code from here.

Answer 1

$servers = Import-Csv "sources.csv" imports the content of sources.csv as a list of custom objects into the variable $servers.
$computername = $servers.server selects the value of the server property of each object into the variable $computername, thus generating a list of computer names.
$ServiceName = $servers.services selects the value of the services property of each object into the variable $ServiceName, thus generating a list of service names.
Note that $array.property will only work in PowerShell v3 and newer, because earlier versions don't automatically unroll the array to get the element properties, but try to access the property of the array object itself. If the array doesn't have such a property, the result will be $null, otherwise it will be the value of the property of the array. Either way it won't be what you want. To make the property expansion work across all PowerShell versions use Select-Object -Expand or echo the property in a ForEach-Object statement:
$computername = $servers | Select-Object -Expand server
$computername = $servers | ForEach-Object { $_.server }
When you put array variables in a string ("$computername - $ServiceName") the array elements are joined by the $OFS character (space by default), so "$computername" becomes BRWS40 BRWS84 and "$ServiceName" becomes winrm winrm.
To get the corresponding service name for each computer you need to process $servers in a loop, for instance:
foreach ($server in $servers) {
Write-Host ('{0} - {1}' -f $server.Server, $server.Services) ...
}
If you don't need a specific output format you could also use one of the Format-* cmdlets, for instance Format-Table:
Import-Csv "sources.csv" | Format-Table -AutoSize

Answer 2

You actually have to loop through your result:
$servers = Import-Csv "sources.csv"
$servers | %{
$computername = $_.server
$ServiceName = $_.services
write-host "$computername - $ServiceName" -foregroundcolor black -backgroundcolor red
}
or use the Format-Table cmdlet:
$servers | Format-Table