Virtual Geek

I wanted to create XML file using PowerShell and PowerShell offers different ways to create XML file in different formats, with PowerShell you can create and generate different types of XML format. One of the simple way I shown in this article PowerShell Create XML document with XmlWriter .net object. 

Export-Clixml

In the below example the Export-Clixml cmdlet generates a Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) XML-based representation of an object or objects and saves/stores it in a file. In the produced file the XML schema used is PowerShell. A valued use of Export-Clixml on Windows computers is to export credentials and secure/protect strings securely as XML.

#Export-CliXML
Get-Service | Select-Object Name, DisplayName, Status, StartType -First 2 | Export-Clixml -NoTypeInformation -Path C:\Temp\XML\file.xml
notepad C:\Temp\XML\file.xml

ConvertTo-Xml

This is the another way to create XML with cmdlet ConvertTo-Xml. It generates XML-based illustration of one or more .NET objects. To use this cmdlet, pipe one or more objects to the cmdlet, or use the InputObject parameter to specify the object. When you pipe manifold objects to ConvertTo-Xml or use the InputObject parameter to submit multiple objects, ConvertTo-Xml returns a single, in-memory XML document that comprises representations of all of the objects.

Inside ConvertTo-Xml there is method called save('filepath'), to save file to provided path.

#ConvertTo-XML
$filePath = 'C:\Temp\XML\file.xml'
$xmlData = Get-Service | Select-Object Name, DisplayName, Status, StartType -First 2 | ConvertTo-XML -NoTypeInformation
$xmlData.Save($filePath)
Get-Content $filePath

Generate XML file using foreach loop

Below XML data format is very simple and alternate to generate XML file. I have generated this file using below sample foreach loop. You can generate same format in the file using PowerShell Create XML document with XmlWriter .net object.

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#Manually create XML using foreach loop
$data = Get-Service | Select-Object Name, DisplayName, Status, StartType -First 2
$properties = $data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -ExpandProperty  Name

$xmlData = @()
$xmlData += '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> '
$xmlData += '<services>'
foreach ($obj in $data) 
{
    $xmlData += '   <service>'
    foreach ($property in $properties) 
    {
        $xmlData += "       <$property>$($obj.$property)</$property>"
    }
    $xmlData += '   </service>'
}
$xmlData += '</services>'
$xmlData | Out-File -FilePath C:\Temp\XML\file.xml

Download convert to xml using powershell here or this script is also available on github.com.

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