Can I package a CSV file as a module resource

Question

I have a custom PowerShell module with a corresponding module manifest. In one command in my module I have a hard-coded array of hash tables. This was fine at first but occasionally I have to go back and add new hash tables to this hard-coded array and the array is becoming quite long. It is becoming difficult to manage this data in this way. What I would really like to do is move this collection out into an external resource (e.g. a CSV file) and have the command read the data from the CSV file. Actually, this is what I preferred from the beginning but it has only just now become painful enough that I feel compelled to figure out how to do this.

My question is how would I go about doing this? Or can it even be done? I have read quite a bit about module manifests but I do not ever recall reading anything that describes a way to specify additional resources in the manifest file or how to load those resources in such a way as to be 'private' to a module. I suppose I could just drop the CSV file in the module's folder with all the other PowerShell files and then maybe I can find it using $PSScriptRoot but that does not seem very 'official' (and I am not 100% sure it would work). Plus, by doing it that way there is nothing in the manifest that would suggest to somebody else that there are other resources that are required for the module to function properly.

Is there a best practice for something like this or am I coming at this all wrong?

Answer 1

The manifest definition does have a key for this; it is called FileList and is essentially an array of files. Since the description generated by the New-ModuleManifest cmdlet says, "List of all files packaged with this module," that is what I specified when I used it. (I didn't have to list the .psm1 file since it is listed elsewhere in the manifest.)

# List of all files packaged with this module
FileList = @(
   'script1.ps1',
   'script2.ps1',
   'Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.Dll',
   'transform.proj',
   'some_file.xml'
)

As for locating the files, I simply use $PSScriptRoot, just like you suggested.

To my knowledge, there isn't anything that automatically handles installation of the module. It's still up to you to get it into a folder in the PSModulePath environment variable.