Trying to extract child node values from xml in Powershell

Question

I have the following xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<AdminDirectorUsers>
    <Users>
        <User>
            <UserName>PC1</UserName>
            <Installation>
                <Products>
                    <Product>
                        <ProductID>Product1</ProductID>
                        <Selected>Yes</Selected>
                    </Product>
                    <Product>
                        <ProductID>Product2</ProductID>
                        <Selected>No</Selected>
                    </Product>
                    <Product>
                        <ProductID>Product3</ProductID>
                        <Selected>No</Selected>
                    </Product>
                    <Product>
                        <ProductID>Product4</ProductID>
                        <Selected>Yes</Selected>                        
                    </Product>
                </Products>
            </Installation>
        </User>
        <User>
            <UserName>PC2</UserName>
            <Installation>
                <Products>
                    <Product>
                        <ProductID>Product1</ProductID>
                        <Selected>Yes</Selected>
                    </Product>
                    <Product>
                        <ProductID>Product2</ProductID>
                        <Selected>Yes</Selected>
                    </Product>
                    <Product>
                        <ProductID>Product3</ProductID>
                        <Selected>No</Selected>
                    </Product>
                    <Product>
                        <ProductID>Product4</ProductID>
                        <Selected>Yes</Selected>                        
                    </Product>
                </Products>
            </Installation>
        </User>
    </Users>
</AdminDirectorUsers>

I would like to loop through and extract a list of each UserName with all ProductIDs that has a sibling node Selected with a value of Yes, while ignoring the values of No.

$path = 'C:\Temp\test.xml'
$xml = New-Object -TypeName XML
$xml.Load($Path)
$UserNode = $xml.SelectNodes('//User')
$ProductNode = $xml.SelectNodes('//Product')

foreach ($PC in $usernode)
{
  $PC.username
  foreach($Node in $ProductNode){
    # Test if selected == 'yes'
    if($Node.Selected -eq 'yes') {
      $Node.ProductID
    }
  }
}

My output is:

PC1
Product1
Product4
Product1
Product2
Product4
PC2
Product1
Product4
Product1
Product2
Product4

...but I'm looking for:

PC1
Product1
Product4
PC2
Product1
Product2
Product4

I've tried many ways to do this but nothing seems to work. What am I missing?

Mathias R. Jessen · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-11 16:31:08Z

1

Change the second XPath expression used for the Product/ProductID to only get the descendants of a specific <User> element, by anchoring against . (the "current node"):

# Enumerate each `<User>` element
$xml |Select-Xml '//User' |%{
  # Grab the exact username value
  $username = $_.Node.UserName

  # Then enumerate all descendant `<ProductID>` nodes who has a sibling `<Selected>Yes</Selected>` and attach username
  $_.Node |Select-Xml './/ProductID[../Selected[. = "Yes"]]' |Select -Expand Node |Select @{Name='Username';Expression={$username}},InnerText
}

(I'm using Select-Xml here but this works the same with the SelectNodes() method)

answered Jan 11, 2022 at 16:31

Mathias R. Jessen

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2 Comments

strayletters Over a year ago

This was driving my crazy! Thank you, I could not figure out how to anchor it to get only the descendants.

Mathias R. Jessen Over a year ago

@strayletters You're most welcome! Note that you can describe the relative position in the path the same way you would with the file system (. describes "this node", .. describes the immediate parent)

Alex R. · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-11 16:39:31Z

1

Try to use this code:

Clear-Host
[XML]$Data = Get-Content 'C:\temp\test.xml'
[array]$UsersData = $Data.AdminDirectorUsers.Users.User
foreach($PC in $UsersData) {
    $PC.username
    foreach($Node in $PC.Installation.Products.Product){
        if($Node.Selected -eq 'Yes') {
            $Node.ProductID
        }
    }
}

My result with your xml file is

PC1
Product1
Product4
PC2
Product1
Product2
Product4

answered Jan 11, 2022 at 16:39

Alex R.

4873 silver badges16 bronze badges

1 Comment

strayletters Over a year ago

This works great too! That was the output I was asking for. I never thought of using an array like that. Handy to keep in my back pocket.

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