Select-XML

Find text in an XML string or document using an XPath query.

Syntax
 Select-XML -Content string[] [-Xpath] string
  [-Namespace hashtable] [CommonParameters ]
 Select-XML [-Path] string[] [-Xpath] string
 [-Namespace hashtable] [CommonParameters ]
 Select-XML [-Xml] XmlNode[] [-Xpath] string
 [-Namespace hashtable] [CommonParameters ]
Key
 -Content string[]
 A string that contains the XML to search.
 You can also pipe strings to Select-XML.
 -Namespace hashtable
 A hash table of the namespaces used in the XML.
 Use the format @{namespaceName = namespaceValue}.
 -Path path
 The path and file names of the XML files to search.
 Wildcards are permitted.
 -Xml XmlNode[]
 One or more XML nodes.
 A Path or XML parameter is required in every command.
 An XML document will be processed as a collection of XML nodes.
 If an XML document is passed to Select-XML, each
 document node will be searched separately as it comes through the pipeline.
 -Xpath string
 An XPath search query.
 The query language is case-sensitive. This parameter is required.

Examples

Search the Types.ps1xml file for child items of the AliasProperty node:

PS C:\> $path = "$env:windir\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Types.ps1xml"
PS C:\> Select-XML -path $path -xpath "/Types/Type/Members/AliasProperty"

Search in several XML files:

PS C:\> Select-XML -path test*.xml, help.xml -xpath "/Tests/Test[1]/Name"

Pipe an XML document to Select-XML:

PS C:\> [xml]$Types = Get-Content "$env:windir\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Types.ps1xml"
PS C:\> Select-XML -xml $Types -xpath "//MethodName"

"Content is king" ~ Webmonkey @Wired.com circa 1996

Related PowerShell Cmdlets

ConvertTo-Xml - Convert the input into XML.
Select-Object - Select properties of an object or set of objects.