powershell Get-ChildItem iis:\sites | Export_CliXml sites.xml doesn't result in same as string output

Question

Short:

Get-ChildItem IIS:\Sites
Get-ChildItem IIS:\Sites | Get-CliXml sites.xml

returns one thing as string and another as xml. Why?

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Longer:
When I run

Get-ChildItem IIS:\Sites

I get something in the line of

Name             ID    State    Phys...
Default Web Site 1     Started  C:\i...
MyTestSite       2     Started  C:\i...

but when I pipe it to Export-CliXml like so:

Get-ChildItem IIS:\Sites | Get-CliXml sites.xml

I get nothing with "Default Web Site" or "MyTestSite" in it. => The string and xml don't have anything in common.

When I do the same with Get-Process

Get-Process | Export-CliXml processes.xml

I can find my processes in the output file. => What is in the string can be found in the xml.

Why does Get-Process output about the same as text and xml
while Get-ChildItems IIS:\\Sites one text and something else as xml?
What is it I have misunderstood?

I guess a problem might be that I get an exception from Get-ChildItem iis:\\sites but output is still generated. The xml output seems ok too.

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Update:
When I do

Get-ChildItem IIS:\Sites | select Name,ID,State,PhysicalPath | Get-CliXml sites.xml

I get the values I am looking for.

When I add Bindings

Get-ChildItem IIS:\Sites | select Name,ID,State,PhysicalPath,Bindings | Get-CliXml sites.xml

only 2 sites are iterated and I get an error message. The xml is fine anyway. (some well constructed try-catch in the code i believe)

Answer 1

Can someone confirm or deny that

get-childitem iis:\sites

gives back an object with lots of objects (not strings and integers)
and when this is piped to

export-clixml

the code will do a ToString on every property and return type names for them.

If the above is the case (which it probably is) the solution is to

Get-ChildItem IIS:\Sites | select Name,ID,State,PhysicalPath | Get-CliXml sites.xml

but not for complex properties like Binding.