Question

I have not worked with XML much so this may be a basic question to most…

I want to collect information from Get-ChildItem, combined with Get-Acl, and store it in an XML file so I can use it later within PowerShell.

The issue: in order for me to use the Get-Acl I have to use a foreach loop within the pipeline, which is in turn changing the object type to system.string. So when I export that to XML it is pretty much just a flat file, not table structure.

How can I get the table structure back?

If I just do this command I can get the table structure:

Get-ChildItem . -Recurse | 
Select FullName, PSIsContainer, CreationTimeUTC, LastAccessTimeUtc, Length | 
Export-Clixml .\STIGTest\Baseline_1.xml

When I do this command, which is what I need, I get the flat file:

Get-ChildItem . -Recurse | 
foreach-object {$AclOwner = (get-acl $_.pspath).owner; $_.Fullname, $_.PSIsContainer, $_.CreationTimeUtc, $_.LastAccessUtc, $_.Length, $AclOwner} | 
Export-Clixml .\STIGTest\Baseline_2.xml

I have seen where you can convert a system object to a string but can’t seem to find where I can do the reverse. I am guessing if they stay as a system object the XML file will keep the table structure?

Answer 1

Give this one a try. It takes advantage of the fact that Select-Object can create “calculated” properties specified by an expression.

Get-ChildItem . -Recurse | 
Select FullName,
       PSIsContainer,
       CreationTimeUTC,
       LastAccessTimeUtc,
       Length,
       @{Name='Owner';Expression={ (Get-Acl $_.PSPath).Owner }} | 
Export-Clixml .\STIGTest\Baseline_1.xml

I wrote @{Name=...; Expression=...} for clarity but they can be shortened to @{N=...,E=...}.