Getting the element name of an attribute in xml using powershell

Question

I would like to get the node name of an attribute using powershell. Can anyone please let me know if we have a built in function for the same.

Following is my xml file called pricefile.xml

 <model type="model1" name="default" price="12.12" date="some_value">
  <PriceData>
    <item name="watch" price="24.28" date="2013-12-01"/>
    <item name="toy" price="22.34" date="2013-12-02"/>
    <item name="bread" price="24.12" date="2013-12-03"/>
  </PriceData>
 </model>

Say I want to get the element name "item" for the attribute "toy". How can I get this data?

This is what I have so far.

[xml]$item = get-content pricefile.xml
$item.SelectNodes("//item/@*")

which gives me the below output, but I do not know how to get the element of the attribute from here or it's parent node.

If I use any of the below commands I get no output.

[xml]$item = get-content pricefile.xml

$item.SelectNodes("//item/@*").parentnode

$item.SelectNodes("//item/@*") | where {$_.parentnode}

Mathias R. Jessen · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-17 07:31:33Z

5

First, to select the element with the name attribute value toy:

$toy = $item.SelectSingleNode("//*[@name='toy']")

Since PowerShell is trying to be helpful, and expose the name attribute as a property on the object, we'll need to use the property accessor for the actual tag Name property:

$toy.get_Name()

answered Mar 17, 2017 at 7:31

Mathias R. Jessen

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TechSpud · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-17 07:37:32Z

3

Here's the xpath way:

[xml]$item = @'
  <model type="model1" name="default" price="12.12" date="some_value">
    <PriceData>
      <item name="watch" price="24.28" date="2013-12-01"/>
      <item name="toy" price="22.34" date="2013-12-02"/>
      <item name="bread" price="24.12" date="2013-12-03"/>
    </PriceData>
  </model>
'@

(Select-XML -Xml $item -XPath "//item[@name=""toy""]").Node
(Select-XML -Xml $item -XPath "//item[@name=""toy""]").Node.get_Name()

answered Mar 17, 2017 at 7:37

TechSpud

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Kirill Pashkov · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-17 07:48:50Z

3

Here's another way to get the desired info:

$item.model.PriceData.Item | ? name -eq toy

answered Mar 17, 2017 at 7:48

Kirill Pashkov

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har07 · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-18 05:14:10Z

Given an XmlAttribute object to start with, you can get parent element via OwnerElement property. Notice that ParentNode won't work here since its value is always empty on XmlAttribute :

λ $myXmlAttr = $item.SelectSingleNode("//item/@*")
λ $myXmlAttr.OwnerElement.LocalName
item
λ $myXmlAttr | Format-List -Property *


#text           : watch
ParentNode      :
Name            : name
LocalName       : name
NamespaceURI    :
Prefix          :
NodeType        : Attribute
OwnerDocument   : #document
Value           : watch
SchemaInfo      : System.Xml.XmlName
InnerText       :
Specified       : True
OwnerElement    : item
InnerXml        :
BaseURI         :
ChildNodes      : {#text}
PreviousSibling :
NextSibling     :
Attributes      :
FirstChild      : #text
LastChild       : #text
HasChildNodes   : True
IsReadOnly      : False
OuterXml        : name="watch"
PreviousText    :

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