Question

I have fields in the csv files that have carriage returns in them, think emails, and I would like to define a different row terminator if at all possible, thanks!

Answer 1

By convention, a multiline field in a csv field is delimited by double quotes (“). Powershell should do this or you:

PS C:\> $ob = new-object PSObject |
    add-member -memberType NoteProperty -name "header" -value "header1" -PassThru |
    add-member -memberType NoteProperty -name "body" -value  @"
Body text
with carriage returns
"@ `
    -PassThru |
    add-member -memberType NoteProperty -name "tail" -value "tail1" -PassThru
PS C:\> $ob

header                                  body                                    tail
------                                  ----                                    ----
header1                                 Body text...                            tail1

PS C:\> $ob | Export-Csv \temp\ml.csv
PS C:\> get-content \temp\ml.csv
#TYPE System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject
"header","body","tail"
"header1","Body text
with carriage returns","tail1"

Now importing this file should give you the original:

PS C:\> (import-csv C:\Temp\ml.csv).body
Body text
with carriage returns