Trim text between two strings in Powershell

Question

I have a file with content like this:

 <CdtrAgt>
      <FinInstnId>
        <BIC>HANDSESS</BIC>
        <Nm></Nm>
        <PstlAdr>
          <Ctry>SE</Ctry>
        </PstlAdr>
      </FinInstnId>
    </CdtrAgt>
    <Cdtr>
      <Nm> Very long company name here</Nm>
      <PstlAdr>
        <Ctry>SE</Ctry>
        <AdrLine> Very long street address here</AdrLine>
      </PstlAdr>
    </Cdtr>
    <CdtrAcct>

I need to find all occurrences of the Address and Name filed and trim this down to maximum 30 characters. So far I have this:

(Get-Content "P:\Economy\MonBet\Test.xml") |
Foreach-Object {$_ -replace "(?sm)<AdrLine>.*?</AdrLine>","<AdrLine></AdrLine>"} |
Foreach-Object {$_ -replace "(?sm)<Nm>.*?</Nm>","<Nm>$1</Nm>" } |
Out-File "P:\Economy\MonBet\Test2.xml"

But this only find and removes the text. How do I keep part of the text fond by my RegEx and insert it in my replace?

Theo · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-24 14:51:59Z

Unfortunately, you show us only part of the XML file and now it is invalid xml..

Because it is XML, you should not use string replacements on it, because PowerShell is quite capable to handle xml.

If I add the missing root element and the missing closing tags to your example to become:

<root>
    <CdtrAgt>
        <FinInstnId>
        <BIC>HANDSESS</BIC>
        <Nm></Nm>
        <PstlAdr>
            <Ctry>SE</Ctry>
        </PstlAdr>
        </FinInstnId>
    </CdtrAgt>
    <Cdtr>
        <Nm> Very long company name here blah blah blah</Nm>
        <PstlAdr>
            <Ctry>SE</Ctry>
            <AdrLine> Very long street address here blah blah blah</AdrLine>
        </PstlAdr>
    </Cdtr>
    <CdtrAcct></CdtrAcct>
</root>

Then you can update the strings in the specified tags like below:

[xml]$xml = Get-Content -Path "P:\Economy\MonBet\Test.xml" -Raw

$xml.SelectNodes("//Cdtr") | ForEach-Object {
    $value = $_.Nm.Trim()
    $_.Nm = $value.Substring(0, [math]::Min($value.Length, 30)).Trim()
    $value = $_.PstlAdr.AdrLine.Trim()
    $_.PstlAdr.AdrLine = $value.Substring(0, [math]::Min($value.Length, 30)).Trim()
}

$xml.Save("P:\Economy\MonBet\Test_Updated.xml")

Result:

<root>
  <CdtrAgt>
    <FinInstnId>
      <BIC>HANDSESS</BIC>
      <Nm>
      </Nm>
      <PstlAdr>
        <Ctry>SE</Ctry>
      </PstlAdr>
    </FinInstnId>
  </CdtrAgt>
  <Cdtr>
    <Nm>Very long company name here bl</Nm>
    <PstlAdr>
      <Ctry>SE</Ctry>
      <AdrLine>Very long street address here</AdrLine>
    </PstlAdr>
  </Cdtr>
  <CdtrAcct>
  </CdtrAcct>
</root>

This was super helpful, working exactly as intended. I had no clue about the xml capabilities. Thank you!

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Trim text between two strings in Powershell

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