Question

In Powershell,
suppose I have the following xml:

  <Users>
    <User Name="Foo">
      <Friends>
        <Friend Name="Bar"/>
      </Friends>
    </User>
    <User Name="Foo2" />
    <User Name="Foo3">
      <Friends>
        <Friend Name="Bar"/>
      </Friends>
    </User>
  </Users>

How can I get all the users that have a “Bar” as a friend?
(In this example it would be Foo,Foo3).

Should I use xpath?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I have a preference for using XPath these days. I’ve run into issues using PowerShell’s xml adapter that are annoying like the name collision on item:

$xml = [xml]@'
  <Users> 
    <User Name="Foo"> 
      <Friends> 
        <Friend Name="Bar"/> 
      </Friends> 
    </User> 
    <User Name="Foo2" /> 
    <User Name="Foo3"> 
      <Friends> 
        <Friend Name="Bar"/> 
      </Friends> 
    </User> 
  </Users> 
'@

Select-Xml '//User[contains(Friends/Friend/@Name, "Bar")]' $xml |%{$_.Node.Name}