Sorting xml document in powershell

Question

I'd like to sort the following xml document using powershell.

<car>
<germany>
    <manufacturer>Opel</manufacturer>
    <manufacturer>BMW</manufacturer>
    <manufacturer>Benz</manufacturer>
</germany>
<japan>
    <manufacturer>Nissan</manufacturer>
    <manufacturer>Daihatsu</manufacturer>
</japan></car>

So the elements inside germany and japan should be sorted.

Ideally I'd like to read the xml from the file system, and overwrite the existing doc with the sorted one.

Where does the <car> tag start and end?

Rei Miyasaka
– Rei Miyasaka

2010-10-20 00:08:06 +00:00
Commented Oct 20, 2010 at 0:08 — Rei Miyasaka
– Rei Miyasaka, Commented Oct 20, 2010 at 0:08
Oops!!! Forgot about that, sorry. Right after </japan>

Henno
– Henno

2010-10-20 00:13:11 +00:00
Commented Oct 20, 2010 at 0:13 — Henno
– Henno, Commented Oct 20, 2010 at 0:13

stej · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-20 11:48:02Z

5

There are probably many solutions. One quick is this one:

$xml = [xml]"<car>
<germany>
    <manufacturer>Opel</manufacturer>
    <manufacturer>BMW</manufacturer>
    <manufacturer>Benz</manufacturer>
    <manufacturer>b</manufacturer>
    <manufacturer>a</manufacturer>
    <manufacturer>c</manufacturer>
</germany>
<japan>
    <manufacturer>Nissan</manufacturer>
    <manufacturer>Daihatsu</manufacturer>
</japan></car>"

$g = $xml.car.germany| select-xml 'manufacturer' | Select-Object -expand Node | sort '#text'
$j = $xml.car.japan | select-xml 'manufacturer' | Select-Object -expand Node | sort '#text'

@"
<car>
<germany>
    $( ($g | % { $_.OuterXml}) -join "`n`t" )
</germany>
<japan>
    $( ($j | % { $_.OuterXml}) -join "`n`t" )
</japan></car>
"@

Note that I used Select-Xml to extract manufacturers from the xml, because $xml.car.germany.manufacturer returned just array of strings (you probably had problems with that). I wasn't able to get the original object, even with help of PsBase property. That's why I used Select-Xml.

answered Oct 20, 2010 at 11:48

stej

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2 Comments

Keith Hill Over a year ago

What's wrong with using $g = $xml.car.germany.manufacturer | sort?

stej Over a year ago

$xml.car.germany.manufacturer | sort returns array of strings. Did you mean to recreate the xml like $xml.car.germany.manufacturer | sort | % { '<manufacturer>'+$_+'</manufacturer>' }? I found the OuterXml approach cleaner in case there would be some other attributes/elements inside. Or - are you able to get original XmlElement from $xml.car.germany.manufacturer | sort? I didn't :|

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