{"id":895,"date":"2023-03-30T09:07:13","date_gmt":"2023-03-30T16:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/?p=895"},"modified":"2023-04-01T10:02:30","modified_gmt":"2023-04-01T17:02:30","slug":"update-xml-files-using-powershell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/update-xml-files-using-powershell\/","title":{"rendered":"Update XML files using PowerShell"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many available blog posts on internet explaining how to update XML<\/a> files in PowerShell<\/a>. But I felt need of one consolidated blog where complex XML files can be updated using PowerShell. These complex xml files can have long complex hierarchy of XML nodes and attributes.<\/p>\n

Let us try to update below XML sample at various levels of node hierarchy.<\/p>\n

Sample XML Code<\/h2>\n
<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?>\n<Data version=\"2.0\">\n  <Roles>\n    <Role Name=\"ManagementServer\" Value=\"OldManagementServer\" \/>\n  <\/Roles>\n  <SQL>\n    <Instance Server=\"OldSQLServer\" Instance=\"MSSQLSERVER\" Version=\"SQL Server 2012\">\n      <Variable Name=\"SQLAdmin\" Value=\"Domain\\OldSQlAdmin\" \/>\n      <Variable Name=\"SQLUser\" Value=\"domain\\sqluser\" \/>\n    <\/Instance>\n  <\/SQL>\n  <VMs>\n    <VM Type=\"ClientVM\">\n      <VMName>ClientVM<\/VMName>\n    <\/VM>\n    <VM Type=\"DNSServerVM\">\n      <VMName>OldDNSServer<\/VMName>\n    <\/VM>\n  <\/VMs>\n<\/Data><\/code><\/pre>\n
\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n
Steps to follow<\/h2>\n
Save the above xml block in C: drive with name “Data.xml”.<\/p>\n
We will update the nodes in XML file to use a new management, SQL, and DNS servers. Below are the step-by-step PowerShell commands on how we can update the nodes and their attributes at various levels.<\/p>\n
    \n
  1. \n
    Define the variables that we need to modify.<\/p>\n
    $path             = 'C:\\Users\\sorastog\\Desktop\\blog\\Variable.xml'\n$ManagementServer = 'NewManagementServer'\n$SQLServer        = 'NewSQLServer'\n$SQLAdmin         = 'Domain\\NewSQlAdmin'\n$DNSServerVMName  = 'NewDNSServer'<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  2. \n
    Read the content of XML file.<\/p>\n
    $xml = [xml](Get-Content -Path $path)<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  3. \n
    Update ManagementServer<\/code>: Change the attribute Value<\/strong> of nodes at level 3 based on the Name<\/strong> attribute on the same level.<\/p>\n
    $node = $xml.Data.Roles.Role | \nwhere {$_.Name -eq 'ManagementServer'}\n$node.Value = $ManagementServer<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  4. \n
    Update SQLServer<\/code>: Change the attribute Value<\/strong> of a node at level 3.<\/p>\n
    $node        = $xml.Data.SQL.Instance\n$node.Server = $SQLServer<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  5. \n
    Update SQLAdmin<\/code>: Change the attribute Value<\/strong> of nodes at level 4 based on the Name<\/strong> attribute on the same level.<\/p>\n
    $node = $xml.Data.SQL.Instance.Variable |\nwhere {$_.Name -eq 'SQLAdmin'}\n$node.Value = $SQLAdmin<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  6. \n
    Update DNSServerVM<\/code>: Change the attribute Value<\/strong> of nodes at level 4 based on the VMType<\/strong> attribute at the level above.<\/p>\n
    $node = $xml.Data.VMs.VM |\nwhere {$_.Type -eq 'DNSServerVM'}\n$node.VMName = $DNSServerVMName<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  7. \n
    Save changes to the XML file.<\/p>\n
    $xml.Save($path)<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    Output<\/h2>\n
    The final PowerShell script will look like below:<\/p>\n
    $path             = 'C:\\Data.xml'\n$ManagementServer = 'NewManagementServer'\n$SQLServer        = 'NewSQLServer'\n$SQLAdmin         = 'Domain\\NewSQlAdmin'\n$DNSServerVMName  = 'NewDNSServer'\n\n$xml = [xml](Get-Content $path)\n\n$node = $xml.Data.Roles.Role |\n    where {$_.Name -eq 'ManagementServer'}\n$node.Value = $ManagementServer\n\n$node        = $xml.Data.SQL.Instance\n$node.Server = $SQLServer\n\n$node = $xml.Data.SQL.Instance.Variable |\n    where {$_.Name -eq 'SQLAdmin'}\n$node.Value = $SQLAdmin\n\n$node = $xml.Data.VMs.VM |\n    where {$_.Type -eq 'DNSServerVM'}\n$node.VMName = $DNSServerVMName\n\n$xml.Save($path)<\/code><\/pre>\n
    The final xml will look like below.<\/p>\n
    \"Image<\/a><\/p>\n
    Hope this post will help you to update complex XML files using PowerShell. If there are suggestions on how to improve this blog post, then please comment below. I will be happy to include them.<\/p>\n
    Till Then, Happy Scripting \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
    Follow more PowerShell posts here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    This posts explains how to update XML files using PowerShell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115450,"featured_media":77,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[53,3,11],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-powershell","tag-configuration","tag-powershell","tag-xml"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
    This posts explains how to update XML files using PowerShell<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115450"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell-community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}