Why is Powershell not treating my file as a well formed XML document?

Question

I'm trying to create a Powershell script which simply recurses through a directory, pulling out the XML files. Then we loop through each of the XMLs, and I simply want to return the count of a certain node. Straight forward stuff. However I can't get it working, and it isn't loading the child nodes correctly.

Here is my code:

foreach ($file in $xmlFiles)
{       
$xml = [xml](Get-Content $file)
$xml.SelectNodes("//RootNode/NextNode")
Write-Host $xml.count    
}

The problem, I believe, doesn't lie with the code, but possibly the XML file itself. If I do a $xml.ChildNodes I get:

xmlns                        NextNode
_____                        _____
http://urlgoeshere           NextNode

where the first item is an attribute of the root node, specifically the schema information; the second item is the next node down from the root. There are more nodes though, which won't show up. The XML is well formed, as it's generated by one program and used by another. However, ChildNodes just isn't displaying all nodes.

<ScreeningSubmission xmlns="http://schema/">
<submission version="2.0">    
<patient>
  <firstname></firstname>
  <lastname></lastname>
  <gender></gender>
  <date-of-birth></date-of-birth>
  <ethnicity></ethnicity>
  <client_ref></client_ref>
  <address1></address1>
  <address2></address2>
  <address3></address3>
  <postcode> </postcode>
  <telephone></telephone>
  <events>
    <result>
      <date></date>
      <read2></read2>
      <value></value>
      <units></units>
      <term30></term30>
      <term60></term60>
    </result>        
  </events>
</patient>
</submission>
</ScreeningSubmission>

Essentially I want to count the number of the node - there is generally about 10+ of this node.

Could you post the xml itself?

stej
– stej

2013-07-19 10:32:54 +00:00
Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 10:32 — stej
– stej, Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 10:32
yes I'll have a bash at sanitising it and popping it up.

kafka
– kafka

2013-07-19 10:39:22 +00:00
Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 10:39 — kafka
– kafka, Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 10:39

stej · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-19 11:15:44Z

1

You might forget about XPath if it is not necessary and use direct access:

$xml = [xml](Get-Content $file)
$xml.ScreeningSubmission.submission.patient.ChildNodes.Count

answered Jul 19, 2013 at 11:15

stej

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Comments

Szymon Kuzniak · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-19 10:58:22Z

0

You should assign result of SelectNodes into a variable. You will get a list so you can then write number of the elements using count.

$nodes = $xml.SelectNodes("//RootNode/NextNode")
Write-Host $nodes.count

You can also query for nodes count using following statement

$xml.ScreeningSubmission.ChildNodes.Count

edited Jul 19, 2013 at 10:58

answered Jul 19, 2013 at 10:33

Szymon Kuzniak

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1 Comment

kafka Over a year ago

This is a good point, however I've done this and now get 0 for every file. I know that there are > 0 nodes.

Szymon Kuzniak · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-19 11:01:02Z

0

Check if your schema definition is correct. It worked for me when I have removed it.

answered Jul 19, 2013 at 11:01

Szymon Kuzniak

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1 Comment

kafka Over a year ago

I've put in a dummy url here - presumably provided it's well formed it doesn't actually matter what it is?

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