Thursday, January 13, 2011

Powershell VCards (text file splitting)

I ran into a problem today that I figured I'd share. The exported addressbook format for GroupWise wouldn't work with Outlook, even though it supported the VCard format, the GroupWise client exported the entire address book in a signle .VCF file, which Outlook didn't support.

While not a good solution, I decided to split up the .VCF file with a script and make multiple .VCF files that could be imported to Outlook.



clear-host
$ifile = $args[0]

If($ifile -eq $NULL)
{
Write-Host Usage: .\vcfrw.ps1 filename.vcf
Write-Host Examp: .\vcfrw.ps1 h:\vcf\joe.vcf
Exit
}

Write-Host Prossessing GroupWise VCard File: $ifile

$i = 1
switch -regex -file $ifile
{
"^BEGIN:VCARD" {if($FString){$FString | out-file -Encoding "ASCII" _
"$ifile.$i.vcf"};$FString = $_;$i++}
"^(?!BEGIN:VCARD)" {$FString += "`r`n$_"}
}

Write-Host VCard Processing Complete
Write-Host Processed $i VCard entries


The biggest problem I had was with the out-file, my first runs generated .VCF files that looked valid, but Outlook would not read them. After a little searching I learned that out-file by default used Unicode format, and Outlook needed them to be ASCII. hence the -Encoding "ASCII" in the script.
at

3 comments:

  1. AnonymousSaturday, March 26, 2011 12:07:00 PM

    I had the reverse problem. Here is something to get started for taking all vcf files and generating a VERY rough csv file.
    # Run this script with the following command:
    # .\vcfReader.ps1 | out-file "AllContacts.csv" -encoding ascii
    clear-host

    # Get all the *.vcf files in the current directory.
    $vcfFiles = gci *.vcf

    foreach ($file in $vcfFiles) {
    # Write-Host Prossessing $file -foregroundcolor green
    if (Test-Path "$file") {
    $phone = ""
    $vcfFile = get-Content "$file"

    foreach ($line in $vcfFile) {
    if ($line.substring(0,1) -eq "N") {
    # "FOUND NAME: $line"
    $name = $line
    }

    if ($line.substring(0,3) -eq "TEL") {
    # "FOUND PHONE: $line"
    $phone = $phone + $line
    }
    }
    "$name, $phone"
    }
    }

    ReplyDelete
  2. JamesThursday, July 13, 2017 8:45:00 AM

    Awesome script. Thanks a lot. One drawback is, your code does not export the last member in the VCF file. Modified your code as below to resolve it.

    clear-host
    $ifile = "filename.vcf"

    If($ifile -eq $NULL)
    {
    Write-Host Usage: .\vcfrw.ps1 filename.vcf
    Write-Host Examp: .\vcfrw.ps1 h:\vcf\joe.vcf
    Exit
    }

    Write-Host Prossessing GroupWise VCard File: $ifile

    $i = 0
    $Fstring = $null
    switch -regex -file $ifile
    {
    "^BEGIN:VCARD" {if($FString){$FString | out-file -Encoding "ASCII" "$i.vcf"};$FString = $_;$i++;}
    "^(?!BEGIN:VCARD)" {$FString += "`r`n$_";}
    }
    $FString | out-file -Encoding "ASCII" "$i.vcf"

    Write-Host VCard Processing Complete
    Write-Host Processed $i VCard entries

    ReplyDelete
  3. tumadorFriday, June 25, 2021 10:39:00 AM

    Perfect for my futur script, Thanks

    ReplyDelete