PowerShell 2.0: One Cmdlet at a Time #86 ConvertTo-XML

Continuing the series looking at new cmdlets available in PowerShell 2.0. This time we look at the ConvertTo-XML cmdlet.

What can I do with it?

Convert a .NET object into an XML-based representation of it.

Example:

Retrieve a list of services beginning with the letter b and convert the object into an XML-based respresentation. Use the available Save method of the XML object to save the data into an XML file.

$xml = Get-Service | Where-Object{$_.Name -like 'b*'} | ConvertTo-Xml
$xml.Save("C:\temp\service.xml")

You can see that when opened the file is a typical style XML document

How could I have done this in PowerShell 1.0?

You could have used Export-Clixml, but that would have exported the information directly to a file which typically did not have the correct formatting when the document was viewed. It was more intended to be used in conjunction with Import-Clixml to recreate the original object from a file.

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