Richard Siddaway's Blog

Found an interesting challenge on the WinIT magazine forum.  Take an XML file

<recipe name="bread" prep_time="5 mins" cook_time="3 hours">
<title>Basic bread</title>
<ingredient amount="8" unit="dL">Flour</ingredient>
<ingredient amount="10" unit="grams">Yeast</ingredient>
<ingredient amount="4" unit="dL" state="warm">Water</ingredient>
<ingredient amount="1" unit="teaspoon">Salt</ingredient>
<instructions>
<step>Mix all ingredients together.</step>
<step>Knead thoroughly.</step>
<step>Cover with a cloth, and leave for one hour in warm room.</step>
<step>Knead again.</step>
<step>Place in a bread baking tin.</step>
<step>Cover with a cloth, and leave for one hour in warm room.</step>
<step>Bake in the oven at 180(degrees)C for 30 minutes.</step>
</instructions>
</recipe>

and turn it into a Word document.  I came up with this as a first pass.  Length of the script can be cut by using functions

## remove existing document
$file = "c:\scripts\test.doc"
if (Test-Path $file){Remove-Item -Path $file}
## read xml file
[xml]$x = Get-Content -Path c:\scripts\test.xml

## open word document
$word = New-Object -ComObject "Word.application"
$word.visible = $true
$doc = $word.Documents.Add()
$doc.Activate()

## recipe title
$word.Selection.Font.Name = "Cambria"
$word.Selection.Font.Size = "20"
$word.Selection.TypeText($x.recipe.title)
$word.Selection.TypeParagraph()

$word.Selection.Font.Name = "Calibri"
$word.Selection.Font.Size = "11"
$word.Selection.TypeText("Preparation Time = $($x.recipe.prep_time)")
$word.Selection.TypeParagraph()

$word.Selection.Font.Name = "Calibri"
$word.Selection.Font.Size = "11"
$word.Selection.TypeText("Preparation Time = $($x.recipe.cook_time)")
$word.Selection.TypeParagraph()
## ingredients
$word.Selection.Font.Name = "Cambria"
$word.Selection.Font.Size = "14"
$word.Selection.TypeText("Ingredients")
$word.Selection.TypeParagraph()

$word.Selection.Font.Name = "Calibri"
$word.Selection.Font.Size = "11"
for ($i=0; $i -le ($x.recipe.ingredient.length -1); $i++){

$ingdnt = $x.recipe.ingredient[$i].amount + " " + $x.recipe.ingredient[$i].unit + " " + $x.recipe.ingredient[$i]."#text" + " " + $x.recipe.ingredient[$i].state
$word.Selection.TypeText($ingdnt)
$word.Selection.TypeParagraph()
}
## instructions
$instructions = $x.recipe.instructions.step | out-string
$word.Selection.Font.Name = "Cambria"
$word.Selection.Font.Size = "14"
$word.Selection.TypeText("Instructions")
$word.Selection.TypeParagraph()
$word.Selection.Font.Name = "Calibri"
$word.Selection.Font.Size = "11"
$word.Selection.TypeText($instructions)
$word.Selection.TypeParagraph()

$doc.SaveAs([REF]$file)
$Word.Quit()

The interesting part is working with XML.  By reading it into [xml]$x we create an xmldocument object.  We can then step through the attributes and the elements, convert them to strings where necessary and output to the word document.  If you’ve not played with XML before its worth spending a little time experimenting at the various levels in the document – especially putting them through get-member.

Couple of points to note.  The way the ingredient element text and the associated attributes are obtained. The way just the instruction steps are retrieved.

Interesting problem.  For this particular file I found it easier to do this way than using Select-XML from CTP 3.  Select-XML is good for investigating XML but you do have to learn XPath syntax

Eileen has posted about a fairly long life span for one of the certificates on her machine - http://blogs.technet.com/eileen_brown/archive/2009/01/29/a-very-trusted-certificate.aspx

If you want to find the certificate that will last the longest on your machine – PowerShell is there for you

Get-ChildItem -Path Cert: -Recurse | Sort Notafter -Descending | Select -First 1 | Format-List

use –recurse to dir through all of the certificates – the certificate store is exposed as a drive by PowerShell.  Sort on the Notafter date & select the first.  Format as a list to see all the properties.

Quicker than opening a GUI.

In this post - http://richardsiddaway.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!43CFA46A74CF3E96!2006.entry – I mentioned the puzzle set by Jeffrey Hicks in his PowerShell column.

If you want the answer it is available at - http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?editorialsid=2977

I somehow ended up agreeing to do a session on Regular Expressions at an upcoming PowerShell UG meeting.  Not sure how it happened as RegEx is not my favourite topic.  I sort of started looking into it a while back but got distracted.

I was browsing round some of my blog links and it seems there has been an explosion of stuff about regular expressions so I thought I’d pull all of the links together.  Be useful when I get back to the beastly things.

In no particular order

http://bsonposh.com/archives/568  - has some good ideas for learning about regular expressions

http://bsonposh.com/archives/595 – good example of using them to investigate a routing table

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/scriptfanatic/archive/2008/12/28/regular-expression-webcast-series.aspx – links to a webcast series with commentary

http://thepowershellguy.com/blogs/posh/archive/2008/12/29/regular-expressions-and-powershell-part-1.aspx – comments on the first parts of the webcast series

http://thepowershellguy.com/blogs/posh/archive/2008/12/30/monday-december-29-2008-5-16-pm-regular-expressions-and-powershell-part-2.aspx – includes link to a regex quick reference powershell function

Enjoy.  To paraphrase..   The code is out there.

I was experimenting, OK I was playing around, with dates and decided to put in Christmas Day

PS> $xmas = [datetime]"25/12/09"
Cannot convert value "25/12/09" to type "System.DateTime". Error: "String was not recognized as a valid DateTime."
At line:1 char:19
+ $xmas = [datetime] <<<< "25/12/09"
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [], RuntimeException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RuntimeException

Oops PowerShell doesn’t allow Christmas!!

Blank look at the screen for a few moments before remembering that we have to use the US format for dates when we are entering them in PowerShell. If I want to enter a date eg 12th March 2009 I would instinctively write

PS> $dwrong = [datetime]"12/3/09"
PS> $dwrong

03 December 2009 00:00:00

And as you can see I would not get what I wanted.  What I need to enter is

PS> $dright = [datetime]"3/12/09"
PS> $dright

12 March 2009 00:00:00

And so Christmas becomes

PS> $xmas = [datetime]"12/25/09"
PS> $xmas

25 December 2009 00:00:00

Living in the UK dates are dd/mm/yyyy not mm/dd/yyyyy so this has been an issue I’ve tripped over a few times.  I had thought that it was a case of PowerShell not having had the bits done to allow other date formats but it turns out it is a design decision.

Lee Holmes has a really good post - http://www.leeholmes.com/blog/DateTimeCastsAreLanguagePrimitives.aspx – explaining the thinking behind the decision.

Having read it I now understand why I have to perform an un-natural act and put the month first.  Still find it awkward but I least I understand.

If you are just learning PowerShell and want to see how you are doing or you know PowerShell and want a problem to solve have a look at Jeffrey Hick’s Prof. PowerShell latest column at http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?editorialsid=2963