XML commands

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a plain text format that is used to store structured data. XML is written to be both human and machine readable.

PowerShell includes Select-Xml and ConvertTo-Xml commands to work with XML content.

Before exploring the commands, let's look at the basic structure of XML documents.

About XML

XML documents often begin with a declaration, as shown here:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

This declaration has three possible attributes. The version attribute is mandatory when a declaration is included:

• version: The XML version, 1.0 or 1.1
• encoding: The file encoding, most frequently utf-8 or utf-16
• standalone: Whether the XML file uses an internal or external Document Type Definition (DTD); permissible values are yes or no

The use of the standalone directive with DTD is beyond the scope of this chapter.

Elements and attributes

XML is similar...