Powershell Regex Complex Pattern (XML)

Question

I have a string in an XML which I am trying to retrun to a varable (below).

<XMLElement><![CDATA[TEXT - I - FIND - INTERESTING]]></XMLElement>

My problem is that I have no knowledge of regex and I am finding it difficult to understand how to convert my special characters into a "string" which is not interpreted as a regex charater.

The text between the square brackets can be any length and any charachter; this is what I would like to save to my variable e.g. "TEXT - I - FIND - INTERESTING".

I am also wondering if this is actually the best approach to this problem.

Any support would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know Powershell, but maybe.... regex101.com/r/FEumVc/1. The text of interest would be in group 1. — MDR
– MDR, Commented Mar 25, 2020 at 22:00
@MDR thank you. I will update my question with the answer. This was exactly what I needed. — Reg
– Reg, Commented Mar 25, 2020 at 22:11

Mathias R. Jessen · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-25 22:10:24Z

3

Don't use regex for XML!

Working with XML in PowerShell has the advantage that we can use XPath to search and navigate a document. In your case I would use the text() selector to resolve the inner value of the CDATA section:

$xml = [xml]@'
<root>
    <XMLElement><![CDATA[TEXT - I - FIND - INTERESTING]]></XMLElement>
</root>
'@

$interestingString = $xml.SelectSingleNode('//XMLElement/text()').Value

//XMLElement means "find and <XMLElement> anywhere"

answered Mar 25, 2020 at 22:10

Mathias R. Jessen

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3 Comments

js2010 Over a year ago

Is there a way to select just the text from an attribute? This just returns nothing: "<XMLElement attrib='this'></XMLElement>" | select-xml '/XMLElement/@attrib/text()' | % node

Mathias R. Jessen Over a year ago

@js2010 no, the expression has to resolve a "node set", in this case consisting only of the <![CDATA]> node

Reg Over a year ago

Thanks Mathias, that works a treat and something I can understand better what I am looking at :)

js2010 · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-26 00:16:27Z

0

The text() function is nice. Here's another way. Even if the node isn't at the top, this should work.

get-content -raw file.xml | select-xml '//XMLElement' | 
  % { $_.node.'#cdata-section' }

TEXT - I - FIND - INTERESTING

Note that tags would be ignored in a cdata section. Example:

'<script>
  <![CDATA[<message>Welcome to TutorialsPoint</message>]]>
</script>' | select-xml '/script' | % { $_.node.'#cdata-section' }

<message>Welcome to TutorialsPoint</message>

edited Mar 26, 2020 at 0:16

answered Mar 25, 2020 at 22:32

js2010

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