Powershell XML parsing

Question

I would like to create a Powershell script that automates parsing an XML, but collecting only certain information from it.

As it stands, right now, my script looks similar to this.

[xml]$xml = Get-Content .\myxml.xml
$foo_sub_length = $xml.report.foos.foo.length - 1
$foo_looper = 0
$foo_looper_brackets = "[$foo_looper]"
if ($foo_sub_length -eq "") {$foo_looper_brackets = ""}
do {
    $xml.report.foos.foo$foo_looper_brackets.bar
}
while ($foo_looper -le $foo_sub_length)

Basically, it needs to go through and print out all of the $xml.report.foos.foo.bar values. When I run this script, I receive the error,

Unexpected token 'node_looper_brackets' in expression or statement.
At C:\Users\notarealuser\Desktop\xmlscript.ps1:10 char:55          #not reflective of the above script
+ CategoryInfo          : ParserError: (foo_looper_brackets:String) [], ParseException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : UnexpectedToken
+     $xml.report.foos.foo$foo_looper_brackets <<<< .bar

Any ideas on why or how my looping is not working?

Keith Hill · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-19 18:04:01Z

3

You might be better off extracting this info with XPath. If you're not using XML namespaces this is pretty trivial (and namespaces only makes it slightly harder):

PS> [xml]'<doc><title>Foo</title><title>Bar</title></doc>' | 
         Select-Xml '/doc/title' | Foreach {$_.Node.InnerText}

Foo
Bar

answered Sep 19, 2012 at 18:04

Keith Hill

204k44 gold badges370 silver badges377 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

Ondaje Over a year ago

Hmm, any idea on how that would work for nested information? For example say there is info in doc/title/foo1/bar1/info and info in doc/title/foo1/bar2/info and doc/title/foo2/bar1/info etc...

Keith Hill Over a year ago

Try an xpath expression like '//info'. That will find all the 'info' nodes wherever they happen to be.

Ondaje Over a year ago

So, to clarify, I would be able to do doc/title//foo//bar//info?

Keith Hill Over a year ago

Not quite. It should be like this: ... | Select-Xml '//info' | ...

walid2mi · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-20 05:07:53Z

1

try this:

[Xml]$doc=@"
<doc><title>
<foo2><bar1><info>1</info></bar1></foo2> 
<foo1><bar1><info>2</info></bar1></foo1>
<foo1><bar2><info>3</info></bar2></foo1>
</title></doc>
"@

$doc.CreateNavigator().Select('/doc/title//info') | select value

answered Sep 20, 2012 at 5:07

walid2mi

2,90417 silver badges15 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Powershell XML parsing

2 Answers 2

4 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

4 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related