PowerShell: Cannot convert value "System.Object[]" to type "System.Xml.XmlDocument"

Question

I am following along the example on how to parse XML with Powershell. I copied the contents of the example XML text and tried to parse with given commands. Everything worked OK.

Then I tried to parse my own XML file but immediately after I had issued [xml]$bar = Get-Content test2.xml command, I got the following error:

Cannot convert value "System.Object[]" to type "System.Xml.XmlDocument". Error: "The '=' character, hexadecimal value 0
x3D, cannot be included in a name. Line 5, position 19."
At line:1 char:1
+ [xml]$bar = Get-Content test2.xml
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : MetadataError: (:) [], ArgumentTransformationMetadataException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RuntimeException

So I suppose the mere fact that the contents of the XML file differ affects Powershell's ability to parse XML data?

My XML file contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<metamarket id="lowvol">
    <market id="asx" marketDir="creditcentraligaapaclve_asx_m" mandatoryNews="False">
        <houseCode="CREDITBAAPACLVE" metahouseCode="CREDITBAAPACLVE"/>
    </market>

    <market id="bru" marketDir="creditcentraligaapaclve_bru_m" mandatoryNews="False">
        <houseCode="CREDITBAAPACLVE" metahouseCode="CREDITBAAPACLVE"/>
    </market>

    <market id="sto" marketDir="creditcentraligaapaclve_sto_m" mandatoryNews="False">
        <houseCode="CREDITBAAPACLVE" metahouseCode="CREDITBAAPACLVE"/>
    </market>
</metamarket>

mklement0 · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-25 18:42:00Z

2

The error message indicates the source of the problem, though it doesn't specifically indicate that an element name is the problem (emphasis added):

Error: "The '=' character, hexadecimal value 0 x3D, cannot be included in a name. Line 5, position 19."

Element names (node names in general) in XML cannot themselves contain = characters.

By contrast, the = in tokens such as id="lowvol" is a separator between an attribute name and its value.

Your XML mistakenly uses such a token - houseCode="CREDITBAAPACLVE" - directly after an opening tag's <, so that houseCode="CREDITBAAPACLVE" was interpreted as the element name.

The solution is to give your element a proper name, such as house:

<house houseCode="CREDITBAAPACLVE" metahouseCode="CREDITBAAPACLVE"/>

edited Oct 25, 2019 at 18:42

answered Oct 25, 2019 at 18:31

mklement0

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