Using a Variable as a Property in PowerShell

Question

A bit of a PowerShell neophyte here, so please be kind. I am creating a PS script which is helping me to document my environment. What I am trying to do is get the names of all of an object's properties and populate an XML document with the property names and corresponding values. For example:

PS C:\> $stuff = Get-SomeStuff
PS C:\> $stuff
Name: foo
Version: 1.0

The output XML would look like this:

<rootNode>
    <stuff>
        <Name>foo</Name>
        <Version>1.0</Version>
    </stuff>
</rootNode>

Essentially I want to use the $stuff property names to substitute for the properties when retrieving the object properties. Essentially I need to dynamically substitute the property name with the extracted name. My code looks like this:

$stuff = Get-SomeStuff
CreateXML $rootnode,"stuff",$stuff

Function CreateXML ($rootNode, $nodeName, $category){
    $subRootNode = $xml.CreateElement($nodeName)
    $catProps = $stuff | Get-Member -MemberType Property | Select -ExpandProperty Name
    foreach ($prop in $catProps){
        $newNode = $xml.CreateElement($prop)
        $newNode.Text = $category.{$prop} #--- THIS IS THE LINE CAUSING PROBLEMS
        $subRootNode.AppendChild($newNode)
    }
$rootNode.AppendChild($subRootNode)
}

Any help is greatly appreciated, as there are thousands of properties I have to capture across multiple nodes.

Maybe I'm just missing it, but where does $category come from? — EBGreen
– EBGreen, Commented May 31, 2013 at 17:08
What is Get-SomeStuff? And what problems exactly does $category.{$prop} cause? — Ansgar Wiechers
– Ansgar Wiechers, Commented May 31, 2013 at 17:09
Actually, it's easier than you're trying. $category.$prop should work. — Mike Shepard
– Mike Shepard, Commented May 31, 2013 at 18:02
Get-SomeStuff was just a dummy cmdlet to simplify the explanation. In terms of the problem it causes, it doesn't work. I was able to establish that the output of doing it that way would dump property typing, not the property itself. — Joshua Chase
– Joshua Chase, Commented May 31, 2013 at 18:24
Mike, I tried that originally but nothing gets sent through the output. — Joshua Chase
– Joshua Chase, Commented May 31, 2013 at 18:27

Shay Levy · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-31 17:49:34Z

2

Try this way:

[xml]$xml = '<rootNode></rootNode>'    

$stuff | foreach {

    $node = $xml.CreateElement('stuff')

    $_.psobject.properties | foreach{
        $prop = $xml.CreateElement($_.Name)
        $prop.InnerText = $_.value
        $node.AppendChild($prop)
    }

    $xml.DocumentElement.AppendChild($node)   

}

$xml

answered May 31, 2013 at 17:49

Shay Levy

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