How to change the value of XML Element attribute using PowerShell?

Question

I am trying to access and change the particular attribute from XML tag

XML:

<office>
  <staff branch="Hanover" Type="sales">
    <employee>
        <Name>Tobias Weltner</Name>
        <function>management</function>
        <age>39</age>
    </employee>
    <employee>
        <Name>Cofi Heidecke</Name>
        <function>security</function>
        <age>4</age>
    </employee>
  </staff>
  <staff branch="London" Type="Technology">
   <employee>
    <Name>XXXX</Name>
    <function>gement</function>
    <age>39</age>

From the above example I want to print branch attribute and then want to change it with one value such as New York in all the whole XML and using below code to do that

       $xml=New-Object XML

      $xml.Load("C:\FE6Work.xml")

      $node=$xml.SelectNodes("/office/staff")

      write-output $node.branch
      $node.branch="New York"

But get an error stating can't find the element.

Can someone please help?

Answer 1

Try the following:

$nodes = $xml.SelectNodes("/office/staff");
foreach($node in $nodes) {
    $node.SetAttribute("branch", "New York");
}

This will iterate through all nodes returned by SelectNodes() and modify each one.

Answer 2

You can access the attributes directly in the [xml] object like this:

# C:\temp> $xml = [xml](Get-Content C:\FE6Work.xml)
# C:\temp> $xml.office.staff

branch                   Type                           employee                                                             
------                   ----                           --------                                                             
Hanover                  sales                          {Tobias Weltner, Cofi Heidecke}                                      
London                   Technology                     {XXXX, Cofi}                                                         

# C:\temp> $xml.office.staff | foreach{$_.branch = "New York"}
# C:\temp> $xml.office.staff

branch                   Type                           employee                                                             
------                   ----                           --------                                                             
New York                 sales                          {Tobias Weltner, Cofi Heidecke}                                      
New York                 Technology                     {XXXX, Cofi}                                                         

Answer 3

if we are taking attribute from console and changing its value ?

$path=Read-Host -Prompt 'Enter path of xml file'
[xml]$xmldata = get-content "$path"

$tag = Read-Host -Prompt 'Enter tag'
$value = Read-Host -Prompt 'Enter value'
$xmldata.InstallConfig.$tag="$value"
$xmldata.Save($path)