XPath Powershell query for a string

Question

I'd like to know how to search for a string within an xml document. The object type is System.Xml.XmlNode.XmlDocument. The string can be anything with the document. I.e. attribute or element.

I tried

Select-Xml -Xml $xml -XPath "./Test"

but got no results

The question is not well-defined. When you say "anything with the document", are you including element names and attribute names? Or only text content/value of elements and attributes? Also, what information do you need back? The name of the attribute or closest element containing the text? the full ancestry path? — LarsH
– LarsH, Commented Sep 13, 2010 at 16:47

svick · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-13 07:36:28Z

2

The pattern you are trying to use selects root nodes named Test.

You could use the pattern (//text()|//@*)[contains(string(), "test")], that selects the attributes that contain the string test or the text nodes that contain it (i.e. not the elements).

But you want to select the elements, right? Using (//*|//@*)[contains(., "test")] does that, but it selects elements that contain the string test, even if it is through some child element, which is not what is wanted either.

So I guess you'll have to use something like (//*[contains(text(), "test")]|//@*[contains(., "test")]), which gives you what you want, but is not very pretty.

answered Sep 13, 2010 at 7:36

svick

247k54 gold badges405 silver badges535 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Henno Over a year ago

Just ran into another issue. How can I include this xpath query to also search through comments in the xml doc?

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

XPath Powershell query for a string

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related