Ubuntu – How to convert a specific CSV column to TitleCase with PowerShell from the REPL console?

Update in response to the now substantially changed question:

• Your original question, as still reflected in the title, was about CSV data, and targeting a specific column. Given that you originally used Import-Csv, an OO approach was called for, as shown in the next section.

  • To target a specific column you need to know its exact name (except that case doesn’t matter).
  • If your CSV file lacks headers, i.e. an initial line with column names, you need to:
    • Manually supply column names, via Import-Csv‘s -Header parameter, e.g.: Import-Csv ./case.csv -Header Name, Value.
    • And then refer to those column names in a ForEach-Object script block, as shown below (e.g., $_.Name)

• Your updated question, which uses plain-text processing of your CSV file using Get-Content, seemingly attempts to convert all column values to title case; to that end, use the following approach:

   $textInfo = (Get-Culture).TextInfo
   Get-Content ./case.csv | ForEach-Object { $textInfo.ToTitleCase($_) }
  
   # Alternatively, if performance doesn't matter and you don't want to 
   # create an aux. variable, to reduce the interactive typing effort:
   Get-Content ./case.csv | ForEach-Object { (Get-Culture).TextInfo.ToTitleCase($_) }
  

Answer to the original, OO question:

To convert a single, known column to title case in a single pipeline, be sure to use its exact name (though case doesn’t matter); using your sample CSV’s first column name as an example:

Import-Csv ./case.csv |
  ForEach-Object {
    $_.fjkdla = (Get-Culture).TextInfo.ToTitleCase($_.fjkdla)
    $_ # Output the modified object.
  }

This outputs the modified objects parsed from the CSV file and outputs them directly; by default, they print to the screen; prepend, e.g., $csv = to the pipeline to capture its output in variable $csv.

Note:

• If you’ve already imported your CSV file and saved the resulting objects to array $csv, iRon’s suggestion is a simple and efficient solution, using the intrinsic .ForEach() method:

  # Transforms the objects stored in $csv in-place.
  $csv.ForEach({ $_.fjkdla = (Get-Culture).TextInfo.ToTitleCase($_.fjkdla) })
  

To methodically convert all columns to title case, without needing to know the column (property) values ahead of time, using the intrinsic psobject property:

Import-Csv ./case.csv |
  ForEach-Object {
    # Iterate over all properties and modify their values.
    foreach ($prop in $_.psobject.Properties) {
      $prop.Value = (Get-Culture).TextInfo.ToTitleCase($prop.Value)
    }
    $_ # Output the modified object.
  }

Note:

• For simplicity and to minimize the interactive typing effort, the above solutions make a call to Get-Culture to obtain the title-casing method not only for each object, but, in the last case, also for each property of each object, which is inefficient.

Better-performing alternative, which caches a reference to the method and invokes it with .Invoke():

$titleCaseMethod = (Get-Culture).TextInfo.ToTitleCase
Import-Csv ./case.csv |
  ForEach-Object {
    # Iterate over all properties and modify their values.
    foreach ($prop in $_.psobject.Properties) {
      $prop.Value = $titleCaseMethod.Invoke($prop.Value)
    }
    $_ # Output the modified object.
  }