Powershell, output xml to screen

Question

I'm learning PowerShell. I can load an xml file into a variable and manipulate it. I can then call the object's save method to save to disk. I expected there to be a way to output the resulting xml to screen, though. I can't seem to find one. Is there a way, other than outputting to file and then file-to-screen?

Answer 1

I couldn't get the Community Extensions to work and I don't really want to have to install something extra anyway. I have found another approach on a Microsoft blog -

function WriteXmlToScreen ([xml]$xml) {     $StringWriter = New-Object System.IO.StringWriter;     $XmlWriter = New-Object System.Xml.XmlTextWriter $StringWriter;     $XmlWriter.Formatting = "indented";     $xml.WriteTo($XmlWriter);     $XmlWriter.Flush();     $StringWriter.Flush();     Write-Output $StringWriter.ToString(); }  $xml = [xml]'<root><so><user name="john">thats me</user><user name="jane">do you like her?</user></so></root>' WriteXmlToScreen $xml 

Answer 2

The only way I know is using System.Xml properties like outerxml or innerxml. These properties should have code already indented as long as the source was.

Answer 3

Look at PSCX module. You will find Format-Xml cmdlet that does exactly that.

Example:

Import-Module pscx
$xml = [xml]'<root><so><user name="john">thats me</user><user name="jane">do you like her?</user></so></root>'
Format-Xml -InputObject $xml

will produce:

<root>
  <so>
    <user name="john">thats me</user>
    <user name="jane">do you like her?</user>
  </so>
</root>

For more info look at help format-xml -full