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I'm trying to refer to some XML elements in a list of parent objects using Powershell, but when I reach the point in my variable declaration that includes a hyphen ('-') the rest of the declaration is read as an argument.

I've tried casting the variable name as a string, enclosing it in single and double quotes as well as parentheses. None have worked.

$imessagelist = $xml.pnet_message_history_packet_response.IMessage
$formidlist = $imessage.formdata.form_id
$fieldlist = $imessage.formdata.im_field
$fieldcontent = $field.data.data_numeric-enhanced

All the references like formidlist and fieldlist let me append '.formdata.im_field' to the list of items and retrieve the data. The only one that doesn't work is the one with a dash in it. The error received is as follows:

At C:\Temps-v0.1.ps1:36 char:69
+ ...                     $fieldcontent = $field.data.data_numeric-enhanced
+                                                                 ~~~~~~~~~
Unexpected token '-enhanced' in expression or statement.

I can't figure out how to escape the dash and get the value in the field named data_numeric-enhanced. Any advice would be very welcome!

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    Have you tried: $field.data.'data_numeric-enhanced' ? Commented Aug 12, 2019 at 13:38

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

You should be able to access the property by encapsulating the last member.

This should work:

$field.data.'data_numeric-enhanced'

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1 Comment

Thanks for your answer! I'd like to point anyone reading this to Mathias's answer as well since it describes the behavior of the interpreter that allows this to work.
2

In version 3 or 4 (can't remember), the . member expression operator was changed to accept any string expression as its right-hand operand, so you can qualify member names with quotation marks:

$field.data.'data_numeric-enhanced'

or

$field.data.$(@('data_numeric'; Write-Host "anything resolving to the member name can go in here"; '-enhanced') -join '')
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2 Comments

Mathias this isn't the first time you've come to my rescue and I wanted to say thank you. Your answers and explanations are invaluable on this site. I may mark the other answer as the solution even though your answer contains a better explanation on the reasoning. The other user just answered in comments first and I'm not sure what the protocol is there.
@MarleyStacy Thank you, great to hear my efforts are worth-while :) don't worry, jrider indeed deserves the accept

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