Handle with empty xmlns attribute generated by powershell

Question

I am trying to create xml file using powershell, and it add an empty xmlns="" in my second layer of node. Google saided that it's because the namespace is different between parent and child, how can I make them same when generating?

My powershell code is below

$gNamespace = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi"
$xmlFilePath = "PATH_TO_XML_FILE"
$xmlWriter = New-Object System.XMl.XmlTextWriter($xmlFilePath, $Null)
$xmlWriter.Formatting = 'Indented'
$xmlWriter.Indentation = 1
$XmlWriter.IndentChar = "`t"
$xmlWriter.WriteStartDocument()
$xmlWriter.WriteStartElement("Wix", $gNamespace)
$xmlWriter.WriteEndElement()
$xmlWriter.WriteEndDocument()
$xmlWriter.Finalize
$xmlWriter.Flush()
$xmlWriter.Close()

$xmlDoc = [System.Xml.XmlDocument](Get-Content $xmlFilePath);
$nsmgr = new-object System.Xml.XmlNamespaceManager($xmlDoc.NameTable)
$nsmgr.AddNamespace("wixns", $gNamespace)

$xmlDoc = [System.Xml.XmlDocument](Get-Content $xmlFilePath)
$productNode = $xmlDoc.CreateElement("Product")
$xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("//wixns:Wix", $nsmgr).AppendChild($productNode)
$productNode.SetAttribute("Id", "ProductIdHere")

The code above generate the following xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">
  <Product Id="ProductIdHere" xmlns=""/>
</Wix>

My expected result is

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">
  <Product Id="ProductIdHere"/>
</Wix>

How to make the namespace the same between parent and child when generating the xml by powershell? and also select the correct node with namespace?

Thanks for your help.

bergmeister bergmeister · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-14T07:41:35

There are much simpler ways of how to do that in PowerShell. Have a look at this example here

From this you can create your XML e.g. as follows:

[xml]$doc = New-Object System.Xml.XmlDocument
$dec = $doc.CreateXmlDeclaration("1.0", $null, $null)
$doc.AppendChild($dec)  
$root = $doc.CreateNode("element","WiX", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi")
$c = $doc.CreateNode("element", "Product", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi")
$c.SetAttribute("Id", "ProductIdHere") | Out-Null
$root.AppendChild($c) | Out-Null
$doc.AppendChild($root) | Out-Null
$doc.Save($pathToSave)

You could of course also just store a base structure in either a string or file, then cast it as [xml] and from then on perform some manipulation.

Handle with empty xmlns attribute generated by powershell

1 Answers