Small Tips and Tricks – PowerShell – how to read content from XML file

Hi All,

Greetings for the day!!!

Today new learning for me so sharing 🙂

In this article we will discuss how to read XML file in PowerShell script

Background

• In one of the PowerShell script we have an requirement of reading XML file
• Even though very common requirement but new for me – reading XML file in PowerShell
• We have very good articles on reading CSV and Text files
  • Small Tips and Tricks – PowerShell – how to read content from text file – https://knowledge-junction.in/2023/02/10/small-tips-and-tricks-powershell-how-to-read-content-from-text-file/
  • Read a CSV file with PowerShell using the Import-CSV function – https://knowledge-junction.in/2022/10/29/read-a-csv-file-with-powershell-using-the-import-csv-function/

Details

• Its very similar how we read text file with PowerShell
• We will use Get-Content CMDLET is used to read the XML file from given path
• Get-Content CMDLET reads file line by line
• Consider following XML file – Here I am explicitly taking .NET configuration file – App.config

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
   <appSettings>
	<add key="ScriptPath" value="C:\\knoweldgejunction_powershell.ps1"/>
	<add key="UserName" value="knowledgejunction"/>
	<add key="Password" value="lifeisbeautiful"/>
   </appSettings>
</configuration>

• So lets consider we need to read the username and password from above XML file – App.config
• We will use Get-Content CMDLET as

[XML]$creds = Get-Content -Path "App.config"

• Make sure we are type-casting output variable ($creds) with [XML]
• Output of the above CMDLET is

xml                            configuration
---                            -------------
version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" configuration

• We get very first node (top node) – <configuration>
• As we have top node, we can loop through the child nodes or we can read individual nodes as well
• Example –

$creds.configuration

o/p - 

appSettings
-----------
appSettings

• Now here to read user name and password – we need to loop though all the keys under <appSettings> and get the respective values as

foreach($key in $creds.configuration.appSettings.add)
 { 
    if($key.key -eq "UserName"){
        $username = $key.value
        }#if

    if($key.key -eq "Password"){
        $password = $key.value
        }#if
 }#foreach

Complete Script

 $username=""
 $password=""

 [XML]$creds = Get-Content -Path "App.config"
 
 foreach($key in $creds.configuration.appSettings.add)
 { 
    if($key.key -eq "UserName"){
        $username = $key.value
        }#if

    if($key.key -eq "Password"){
        $password = $key.value
        }#if
 }#foreach

 Write-Host "UserName is"  $username
 Write-Host "Password is" $password

Thanks for reading 🙂 HAVE a FANTASTIC TIME AHEAD 🙂