CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xmlpowershellhyper-v
Spellchamp
Spellchamp

Reputation: 375

Find and Replace in PowerShell produces a corrupt/not valid file

I'm using PowerShell to edit an XML file. What I'm doing is searching for a string and replacing that string within the XML. The command for this looks like:

(Get-Content "C:\My_VM\Virtual Machines\xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx.XML") | 
Foreach-Object {$_ -replace "My_VMName", "My_VMName_0"} |
Set-Content "C:\My_VM\Virtual Machines\xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx.XML"

Where the XML file in my case is a Virtual Machine image to be imported into Hyper-V

The find/replace works fine, and I can rename the .vhdx file for the import no problem also. I do this using:

Rename-Item "C:\My_VM\Virtual Hard Disks\My_VMName.vhdx" My_VMName_0.vhdx

But when I try to use Import-VM using the following cmdlet:

Import-VM -Path "C:\My_VM\Virtual Machines\xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx.XML" -Copy -GenerateNewID

I get the error:

"Import-VM : The virtual machine configuration could not be read. The data might be corrupt or not valid."

Does anyone know why this is? I've already come up with a workaround(using different technologies) but it's still frustrating. If I open a text editor and rename everything manually it works fine.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1342

Answers (2)

David Bakkers
David Bakkers

Reputation: 555

I had this exact same problem, and that's how I solved it:

Problem

When I tried to use PowerShell to edit a Citrix Receiver *.ica file. If I opened the file with Notepad, replaced the text I wanted, then save it, Receiver will launch the session. However, if I used PowerShell using Get-Content and then Out-File, the file looked normal, but Receiver wouldn't read it and reported a general error.

Solution

The solution turned out to be that, by default, Out-File writes in Unicode format. I needed to change the encoding format to ASCII for it to be in the format required by Receiver.

Upvotes: 2

Jos Lemmerling
Jos Lemmerling

Reputation: 101

Could you try this one? You probably have an issue with newlines etc.

ForEach ($line in (Get-Content "C:\My_VM\Virtual Machines\xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx.XML")) {
  $line -replace "My_VMName", "My_VMName_0" | Out-File new.txt -Append
}

More on this: http://powershell.org/wp/2013/10/21/why-get-content-aint-yer-friend/

Upvotes: 1

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