Powershell how to determine if specific attribute exists in xml

Question

I been able in the past to do a similar task but i don't understand why it doesn't work for the this xml. I am using powershell to read iis settings for requestFiltering but when i am searching in the xml the node "fileExtensions" isn't considered a node. here is the xml.

<system.webServer>
  <security>
    <requestFiltering>
      <fileExtensions allowUnlisted="true" applyToWebDAV="true">

        <add fileExtension=".config" allowed="true" />        
      </fileExtensions>
      <requestLimits>
        <headerLimits>
        </headerLimits>
      </requestLimits>
      <verbs allowUnlisted="true" applyToWebDAV="true">
      </verbs>
      <hiddenSegments applyToWebDAV="true">
        <add segment="web.config" />

      </hiddenSegments>
      <alwaysAllowedUrls>
      </alwaysAllowedUrls>
      <alwaysAllowedQueryStrings>
      </alwaysAllowedQueryStrings>
      <denyUrlSequences>
      </denyUrlSequences>
      <denyQueryStringSequences>
      </denyQueryStringSequences>
      <filteringRules>
      </filteringRules>
    </requestFiltering>
  </security>

$val = the above XML:

$xml = [xml]($val)
$node = $xml.SelectSingleNode("//*[local-name() = 'fileExtensions']")

$node is null/ blank. How come?

Keith Hill · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-09 16:12:01Z

1

What's wrong with using a simpler XPath query:

$node = $xml.SelectSingleNode('//fileExtensions')

FWIW your original query works for me on PowerShell v4.

answered Apr 9, 2014 at 16:12

Keith Hill

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1 Comment

greektreat Over a year ago

Well I copied the other method from some code from the net, i never used this form "//*[local-name() = 'fileExtensions']" but it worked and i stuck with it. But my XPath skills lack. thanks for the update. We are using PS 2.0

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