XmlEx

XmlEx (XML EXtensions) provides a PowerShell domain-specific language (DSL) to easily create and update XML documents without having to understand or manipulate the underlying [System.Xml.XmlDocument] objects. XmlEx provides a simple way to:

• Create and append XML documents in PowerShell
• Manage XML document namespaces and prefixes

Why?

Traditionally, creating XML documents with PowerShell is slow, cumbersome and error prone. I discovered this whilst developing the PScribo plugin to create Word documents. After my eyes started to bleed looking at the code, I decided there had to be an easier way and XmlEx is a result of this!

Take the following short XML document as an example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<w:document xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main" xmlns:xml="http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace">
  <w:body>
    <w:p>
      <w:pPr>
        <w:pStyle w:val="MyStyle" />
        <w:spacing w:before="160" w:after="160" />
      </w:pPr>
      <w:r>
        <w:t />
      </w:r>
    </w:p>
  </w:body>
</w:document>

To generate this in PowerShell code requires something similar to this:

$xmlDocument = New-Object -TypeName 'System.Xml.XmlDocument';
$xmlnsMain = 'http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main';
$null = $xmlDocument.AppendChild($xmlDocument.CreateXmlDeclaration('1.0', 'utf-8', 'yes'));
$documentXml = $xmlDocument.AppendChild($xmlDocument.CreateElement('w', 'document', $xmlnsMain));
$null = $xmlDocument.DocumentElement.SetAttribute('xmlns:xml', 'http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace');

$body = $documentXml.AppendChild($xmlDocument.CreateElement('w', 'body', $xmlnsMain));

$p = $body.AppendChild($XmlDocument.CreateElement('w', 'p', $xmlnsMain));
$pPr = $p.AppendChild($XmlDocument.CreateElement('w', 'pPr', $xmlnsMain));

$pStyle = $pPr.AppendChild($XmlDocument.CreateElement('w', 'pStyle', $xmlnsMain));
$null = $pStyle.SetAttribute('val', $xmlnsMain, 'MyStyle');

$spacing = $pPr.AppendChild($XmlDocument.CreateElement('w', 'spacing', $xmlnsMain));
$null = $spacing.SetAttribute('before', $xmlnsMain, 160);
$null = $spacing.SetAttribute('after', $xmlnsMain, 160);

$r = $p.AppendChild($XmlDocument.CreateElement('w', 'r', $xmlnsMain));
$t = $r.AppendChild($XmlDocument.CreateElement('w', 't', $xmlnsMain));

Using XmlEx, this can be simply written as:

$xmlDocument = XmlDocument {
    XmlDeclaration -Encoding 'utf-8' -Standalone 'yes'
    XmlNamespace -Prefix 'xml' -Uri 'http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace'
    XmlElement document -Prefix 'w' -Namespace 'http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main' {
        XmlElement 'body' {
            XmlElement 'p' {
                XmlElement 'pPr' {
                    XmlElement 'pStyle' {
                        XmlAttribute 'val' 'MyStyle'
                    }
                    XmlElement 'spacing' {
                        XmlAttribute 'before' '160'
                        XmlAttribute 'after' '160'
                    }
                }
                XmlElement 'r' {
                    XmlElement 't'
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Quick start

• Install XmlEx module from the PowerShell Gallery:

Install-Module -Name XmlEx -Scope CurrentUser
Import-Module XmlEx

There are examples in module's \Examples folder.