Mastering Windows PowerShell Scripting - Third Edition

XPath and Select-Xml

XPath can be used to navigate or search an XML document. PowerShell (and .NET) uses XPath 1.0.

The structure and format of XPath queries are beyond the scope of this chapter. However, a number of web resources are available, including https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms256115(v=vs.110).aspx.

Terms and values used in XPath queries, and XML in general, are case-sensitive.

Given the following XML snippet, Select-Xml might use an XPath expression to select the engines of green cars:

$string = @" 
<?xml version="1.0"?> 
<cars> 
    <car type="Saloon"> 
        <colour>Green</colour> 
        <doors>4</doors> 
        <transmission>Automatic</transmission> 
        <engine> 
            <size>2.0</size> 
            <cylinders>4</cylinders> 
        </engine> 
    </car> 
</cars> 
"@ 

The -XPath expression ...