Need a little help with Powershell and XPath please

Question

Need a little help with Powershell and XPath please

Keith VP 21

I am a dinosaur and I have been able to do all my SCCM and remote administration stuff with batch files. I have been recently tasked with finding a value in an XML file from a vendor. I used to be pretty good at figuring things out, but I had a brain tumor and my cognitive ability just doesn't seem to be there like it was, so I'm reaching out for help.

Here is part of my XML, I hope it's enough I can't provide the whole thing

  <DEFAULT DESC="The default timeout values">  
     <PARAMS>  
           </PARAMGROUP>  
           <PARAMGROUP NAME="LONG">  
              <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">60</PARAM>  
           </PARAMGROUP>  
           <PARAMGROUP NAME="MULTIPLE_AMT_ENTRY">  
              <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">75</PARAM>  
           </PARAMGROUP>  
           <PARAMGROUP NAME="MSDISPLAY">  
              <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">120</PARAM>  
           </PARAMGROUP>  
           <PARAMGROUP NAME="TIMERHOST">  
              <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">60</PARAM>  
           </PARAMGROUP>  
           <PARAMGROUP NAME="OPERATOR">  
              <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">2400</PARAM>  
           </PARAMGROUP>  
           <PARAMGROUP NAME="OPERATOR_LONG">  
              <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">2400</PARAM>

I need to pull the OPERATOR value that's currently at 2400 and read what's there.

Here is my PS code so far

$test=0  
$xmlFile = "C:\whatever\Legit.xml"  
$xml = [xml](Get-Content -Path $xmlFile)  
$NAMES_PARAMS = $xml | Select-Xml -XPath '/BEHAVIOUR/SECTION/DEFAULT/PARAMS/PARAMLIST[@NAME="TIMEOUTS"]//PARAMGROUP' | Select -ExpandProperty NODE  
$NAMES_PARAMS | Select-Object –ExpandProperty ChildNodes   
$Values = $NAMES_PARAMS | Select NAME  
$Values

This gives me results with the values I need, but not organized in a way I can seem to manipulate.

NAME #text ---- ----- LENGTH 75 LENGTH 60 LENGTH 300 LOOKUP LENGTH 5 LENGTH 20 LENGTH 45 LOOKUP LENGTH 5 LENGTH 45 LOOKUP LENGTH 30 LENGTH 10 LENGTH 2 LENGTH 2 LENGTH 5 LENGTH 10 LENGTH 15 LENGTH 5 LENGTH 14 LENGTH 30 LENGTH 45 LENGTH 120 LENGTH 45 LENGTH 60 LENGTH 75 LENGTH 120 LENGTH 60 LENGTH 2400 LENGTH 2400 LENGTH 600 CONFIGURABLE Y LENGTH 1800 CONFIGURABLE Y LENGTH 45 CONFIGURABLE Y LENGTH 1200 LENGTH 130 LENGTH 400 LENGTH 1 LENGTH 30 LENGTH 3 LENGTH 300 LENGTH 8 LENGTH 30 LENGTH 60 LOOKUP LENGTH 60 LENGTH 60 LENGTH 40 LENGTH 5 LENGTH 45 claimAssistRequestTimer processAssistRequestTimer DYNAMIC_END END_STD_NOCHAIN END_STD_NOCHAIN_LONG END_STD_CHAIN DYNAMIC_ERROR ERR_SCREEN_NOCHAIN ERR_SCREEN_CHAIN DYNAMIC_CARD_EJECT_TIMEOUT THANKS_SHORT OPERATOR_OMP SHORT TIMEOUTSCREENTIMER MEDIA_CAPTURE CP_PROCESS_TIMEOUT MEDIUM TIMERDEFAULT ENV_PREPARE_TIMEOUT LONG MULTIPLE_AMT_ENTRY MSDISPLAY TIMERHOST OPERATOR OPERATOR_LONG OPERATOR_MEDIUM OPERATOR_LOGS OPERATOR_TIMEOUT REPLACE_MEDIA_TIMEOUT OVERRIDE DISPLAY_CHAIN ONSITEHELP REMOVEID RTDEFAULT RTINTERRUPTED ONSITEHELP_CONNECTED ONSITEHELP_ACCEPTED DYNAMIC_WDOVERRIDE_TIMEOUT WDOVERRIDE_CONNECTED WDOVERRIDE_ACCEPTED ORIENTATION_TIMEOUT MCA DCC_SCREEN_TIMEOUT

\TC\CURTRANS\LOGIC\ADDSUFFIXCHAIN_END_STD

\TC\CURTRANS\LOGIC\ADDSUFFIXCHAIN_ERR_SCREEN

\TC\CURTRANS\LOGIC\ADDNOCARDSUFFIX_CARD_EJECT

\TC\CURTRANS\LOGIC\WDOVERRIDE_TIMEOUT

Accepted answer

2 additional answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Rich Matheisen 47,901

If you prefer to use XPATH to how I did it in my last answer, this should work:

$xp = '//PARAMLIST[@NAME="TIMEOUTS"]/PARAMGROUP[@NAME="OPERATOR"]/PARAM[@NAME="LENGTH"]/text()'  
  
$c = [int]($xml | Select-Xml -XPath $xp).ToString()

Keith VP 21 Reputation points

2022-12-06T12:46:46.5+00:00

Thank you so much, that's exactly what I was looking for!

Answer 2

Rich Matheisen 47,901

It might be considered cheating, but if XPATH isn't your cup of tea, try something like this:

$p = $xml.behavior.section.default.params.paramlist.paramgroup | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'operator'}  
if ($p.param.NAME -eq 'LENGTH'){  
    $v = [int]$p.param.'#text'  
}

FYI, the XML you posted doesn't match the XPATH query! The XML is missing the "PARAMLIST" and its associated name attribute. I didn't bother adding the NAME of the paramlist to the code, but it should be easy enough to figure out.

Keith VP 21 Reputation points

2022-12-05T17:06:06.137+00:00

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, I really appreciate it.

I kind of understand where you're going, but I'm too ignorant to completely figure it out. I'll keep trying with your solution. I may not have provided enough of the XML or deleted something proprietary that messed up the format. I don't know if this helps, but I used an online xpath generator and it gave me this - which I couldn't seem to make work either.

/BEHAVIOUR/SECTION[3]/DEFAULT[@DESC="The default timeout values"]/PARAMS/PARAMLIST[@DeezNutz ="TIMEOUTS"]/PARAMGROUP[29]/PARAM[@DeezNutz ="LENGTH"]/text()

Answer 3

Again, sticking with the ability of directly addressing nodes and attributes in an XML document (instead of using XPATH), here's an expanded version (including the XML input). The result is that the value "2400" is placed in the variable named "$p":

[xml]$xml = @"  
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>  
<BEHAVIOR>  
    <SECTION>  
        <DEFAULT DESC="The default timeout values">  
            <PARAMS>  
                <PARAMLIST NAME="TIMEOUTS">  
                        <PARAMGROUP NAME="LONG">  
                            <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">60</PARAM>  
                        </PARAMGROUP>  
                        <PARAMGROUP NAME="MULTIPLE_AMT_ENTRY">  
                            <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">75</PARAM>  
                        </PARAMGROUP>  
                        <PARAMGROUP NAME="MSDISPLAY">  
                            <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">120</PARAM>  
                        </PARAMGROUP>  
                        <PARAMGROUP NAME="TIMERHOST">  
                            <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">60</PARAM>  
                        </PARAMGROUP>  
                        <PARAMGROUP NAME="OPERATOR">  
                            <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">2400</PARAM>  
                        </PARAMGROUP>  
                        <PARAMGROUP NAME="OPERATOR_LONG">  
                            <PARAM NAME="LENGTH">2400</PARAM>  
                        </PARAMGROUP>  
                </PARAMLIST>  
                <PARAMLIST NAME="SOMEOTHERLIST">  
                    <!-- Some other list of parameters goes here -->  
                </PARAMLIST>  
            </PARAMS>  
        </DEFAULT>  
    </SECTION>  
</BEHAVIOR>  
"@  
  
$p = $xml.behavior.section.default.params.paramlist |           # find all the 'PARAMLIST" nodes  
        Where-Object {$_.NAME -eq "TIMEOUTS"} |                 # only interested in the ones name named "TIMEOUTS"  
            ForEach-Object{  
                $_.PARAMGROUP |                                 # get all the PARAMGROUP nodes in the TIMEOUTS node  
                    ForEach-Object{  
                        if ($_.NAME -eq "OPERATOR"){            # and find the one named "OPERATOR"  
                            if ($_.PARAM.NAME -eq "LENGTH"){    # in this node, get the PARAM named "LENGTH" (if there is one)  
                                [int]$_.PARAM.'#text'           # get the PARAM named "#text" and convert its value to an integer  
                            }  
                        }  
                    }  
                }

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Need a little help with Powershell and XPath please

2 additional answers

Your answer