Downloading a list of fields in SPE producing a separate file for each field

Question

Goal: Download a CSV containing the fields on an item using SPE, including columns for name and type.

Issue: When I try the code below, I get a separate file for each field, rather than a single CSV.

$item = Get-Item -path master: -id <some ID>
$fields = $item.Fields
$fields | select -property name, type | ConvertTo-CSV | Out-Download 

Answer 1

Issue is that Out-Download does not support object[], so we need to cast to string[]:

[string[]]$output  =  $fields | select -property name, type | ConvertTo-Csv

Out-Download -InputObject $output -Name Fields.csv

This produces a single download file. You can confirm that $output is the right type with

PS master:\>$output.GetType()
 
IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     True     String[]                                 System.Array

You can also do this in a single line with this:

Out-Download -inputobject ([string[]]( $fields | select -property name, type | ConvertTo-Csv)) -name Fields.csv 

but this will not work:

Out-Download -inputobject ([string[]]( $fields | select -property name, type | ConvertTo-Csv)) -name Fields.csv 

as the piping syntax causes Out-Download to get called separately for each row.