Below is some cruft I am using to analyze PDC data for candidates in my local WA elections. This is part of a larger project I am working on to use Powershell 3.0 as a data analytic solution. I find working with data in Powershell 3.0 somewhat tricky, sometimes limited, but also no less straightforward than SQL or R. Although, Powershell can sometimes be a little frustrating to work with , I rather like being able to craft my own 'data analytic' solution from the console. I found myself close to the data while working with PS 3.0. Certain techniques produced surprisingly rapid and illuminating results. Take the query below. After having imported to a variable ('$NM') a candidates data from CSV, in one line of code I am able to exclude all WA state contributions; then use 'group-object' to list all 'out of state' contributors,state,amounts in a sort.
$NM | Where State -ne WA | group -property Contributor,State,Amount -noelement | sort -desc Count,Name | ft -auto -wrap
Count Name
----- ----
1 WEBB LISA, MT, 100
1 VASKAS JANET, PA, 100
1 VASKAS ALAN, PA, 100
1 TURNER ZACHARY M, CO, 900
1 TERESA JUDITH, WV, 50
1 SOTO JLEANA, CA, 100
1 MCCLENDON SUSAN, GA, 500
1 ATU, DC, 900
