First create an XML document<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
The first thing to do is to create an instance of the XML document class. This is really easy by using the [XML] type accelerator. The XmlDocument class<\/a> is documented on MSDN. To obtain an instance of the XmlDocument <\/b>class, use the Get-Content<\/b> cmdlet to read the XML file, and then cast the content to XML. This is shown here.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n [xml]$books = Get-Content C:\\fso\\Books.XML<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Note <\/b>To practice working with an XML document, it is important to have a well-formed XML document. You can obtain a sample XML document<\/a> on MSDN.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n When working with XML, I like to use XML Notepad<\/a>. It is a free download from the Microsoft Download Center. (Unfortunately, it has not been updated since 2007, but it installs and works great on Windows 8, so I guess an update is not really needed).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Books.XML XML document in XML Notepad is shown in the following image. This is a great way to explore an XML document prior to using Windows PowerShell to explore the document.<\/p>\n After you have an XML document, it is easy to walk through the nodes. This is especially true with Windows PowerShell 3.0 because it has the “automatic foreach” feature that I talked about in My Five Favorite PowerShell 3.0 Tips and Tricks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n After you use Get-Content<\/b> to read the content of the XML file, you can use the GetType<\/b> <\/i>method to see that it is an XMLDOCUMENT that returns. This is shown here.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n PS C:\\> [xml]$books = Get-Content C:\\fso\\Books.XML<\/p>\n \n PS C:\\> $books.GetType()<\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType<\/p>\n \n ——– ——– —- ——–<\/p>\n \n True False XmlDocument System.Xml.XmlNode<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In the previous image, there is the catalog node, a book node, and each book has an author node. By using the dotted notation and the automatic foreach, the authors are easily accessible as shown here.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n PS C:\\> $books.catalog.book.author<\/p>\n \n Gambardella, Matthew<\/p>\n \n Ralls, Kim<\/p>\n \n Corets, Eva<\/p>\n \n Corets, Eva<\/p>\n \n Corets, Eva<\/p>\n \n Randall, Cynthia<\/p>\n \n Thurman, Paula<\/p>\n \n Knorr, Stefan<\/p>\n \n Kress, Peter<\/p>\n \n O’Brien, Tim<\/p>\n \n O’Brien, Tim<\/p>\n \n Galos, Mike<\/p>\n<\/p>\n To find all of the titles, use the t<\/strong>itle<\/b> <\/i>note as shown here.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n PS C:\\> $books.catalog.book.title<\/p>\n \n XML Developer’s Guide<\/p>\n \n Midnight Rain<\/p>\n \n Maeve Ascendant<\/p>\n \n Oberon’s Legacy<\/p>\n \n The Sundered Grail<\/p>\n \n Lover Birds<\/p>\n \n Splish Splash<\/p>\n \n Creepy Crawlies<\/p>\n \n Paradox Lost<\/p>\n \n Microsoft .NET: The Programming Bible<\/p>\n \n MSXML3: A Comprehensive Guide<\/p>\n \n Visual Studio 7: A Comprehensive Guide<\/p>\n \n PS C:\\><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Keep in mind that Tab expansion does not work for the nodes under book. <\/i>To see the available properties (nodes) without using XML Notepad, pipe the results to Get-Member<\/b>. This is shown here.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n PS C:\\> $books.catalog.book | gm -MemberType Property<\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n TypeName: System.Xml.XmlElement<\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n \n Name MemberType Definition<\/p>\n \n —- ———- ———-<\/p>\n \n author Property string author {get;set;}<\/p>\n \n description Property string description {get;set;}<\/p>\n \n genre Property string genre {get;set;}<\/p>\n \n id Property string id {get;set;}<\/p>\n \n price Property string price {get;set;}<\/p>\n \n publish_date Property string publish_date {get;set;}<\/p>\n \n title Property string title {get;set;}<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Well, that is about it for today. Join me tomorrow when I will talk about more cool Windows PowerShell stuff.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n I invite you to follow me on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/b> <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, shows how to use Windows PowerShell 3.0 to read XML files. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. Tomorrow, we have the speaker’s dinner at the house that script built. The Scripting Wife and I have invited all the Windows PowerShell Saturday speakers for the Charlotte Windows PowerShell Saturday event to our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[364,3,4,45,165],"class_list":["post-4981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-powershell-3-0","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-windows-powershell","tag-xml"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":" Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, shows how to use Windows PowerShell 3.0 to read XML files. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. Tomorrow, we have the speaker’s dinner at the house that script built. The Scripting Wife and I have invited all the Windows PowerShell Saturday speakers for the Charlotte Windows PowerShell Saturday event to our […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Image](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/02\/4034.hsg-9-13-12-1.png\" "\\"Image")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\nUse dotted notation to walk through the nodes<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n