Add a XML node at a perticular postion using powershell

Question

<catalog>
 <book id="bk101">
  <author>Gambardella, Matthew</author>
  <title>XML Developer's Guide</title>
  <genre>Computer</genre>
  <price>44.95</price>
  <publish_date>2000-10-01</publish_date>
  <description>An in-depth look at creating applications 
  with XML.</description>
 </book>
</catalog>

In the following xml i want to add a node before the node genre with value

<bookSold usa='50' Europe='50'> 1000 </booksold>".

filimonic · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-28 10:00:49Z

1

Here is an example

$x = [xml]@'
<catalog>
 <book id="bk101">
  <author>Gambardella, Matthew</author>
  <title>XML Developer's Guide</title>
  <genre>Computer</genre>
  <price>44.95</price>
  <publish_date>2000-10-01</publish_date>
  <description>An in-depth look at creating applications 
  with XML.</description>
 </book>
</catalog>
'@

$newNode = $x.CreateElement('bookSold')
$newNode.InnerText = 1000
$newNode.SetAttribute('usa', 50)
$newNode.SetAttribute('Europe', 50)
[void]$x.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode('/catalog/book').InsertBefore(
    $newNode,
    $x.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode('/catalog/book/genre'))

$document = [System.Xml.XmlDocument]::new()
#PS4 and lower: $document = New-Object -TypeName 'System.Xml.XmlDocument' -ArgumentList @()
$document.Load('S:\SCRIPTS\XMLTest\xmlTest.xml')

$newNode = $document.CreateElement('bookSold')
$newNode.InnerText = 1000
$newNode.SetAttribute('usa', 50)
$newNode.SetAttribute('Europe', 50)

[void]$document.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode('/catalog/book').InsertBefore(
    $newNode,
    $document.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode('/catalog/book/genre'))

$document.Save('S:\SCRIPTS\XMLTest\xmlTest.xml')

edited Jul 28, 2020 at 10:00

answered Jul 28, 2020 at 5:59

filimonic

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4 Comments

ritwik sharma Over a year ago

Thank you very much. this works. can you please explain [void] and DocumenElement is necessary?

filimonic Over a year ago

[void] is same as ... | Out-Null - it supresses return value. InsertBefore returns a reference to XmlNode being inserted, and we do not need it. All output that was not catched by powershell, will be printed to powershell console. [void] catches it and redirects to nowhere. DocumentElement is not necessary, but preferred - it can avoid you working with bad-formatted xml documents. It is a "root node" of your XML document, while $x is your document itself. $x contains methods for document like Load, Save etc, and DocumentElement is just an XmlNode.

ritwik sharma Over a year ago

Thanks for all the help. I may be asking too much but could you recommend any online course that would help me build my power shell skills because currently i'm a beginner and i need to clear basics

filimonic Over a year ago

Almost everything you can do with c#, you can do with powershell. Powershell is just a wrapper around .net (c#). So on any problem, you can google "How to ... in c#", and translate it to powershell. You even can use third-party .net libraries. See, I updated answer. I've created document using pure .net way [System.Xml.XmlDocument]::new() (for powershell 4 and lower there is alternative syntax, that is uglier, but more universal)

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