Regular expression in powershell to replace complete XML node with empty value

Question

This is my web.config file and content.

<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Extensions" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35"/>
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-1.1.0.0" newVersion="3.5.0.0"/>
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Extensions.Design" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35"/>
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-1.1.0.0" newVersion="3.5.0.0"/>
  </dependentAssembly>
</assemblyBinding>
</runtime>

This is my power shell script to remove everything from the tag ...

(Get-Content C:\Temp\web.config) | 
Foreach-Object {$_ -replace '<dependentAssembly>[\s\S]*?<\/dependentAssembly>', ''} | 
Set-Content C:\Temp\web.config

Script is running but its not removing anything. Can anyone please help me in this. What the mistake i am making in above code.

Expected output:

<runtime>
    <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
    </assemblyBinding>
</runtime>

Can you edit your question and show us what you expect the file to look like afterwards as well? — Damien_The_Unbeliever, Nov 27 '15 at 06:36
David already provided the only correct answer but you **do have to read** [this](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/52598). In short, regex is the wrong tool for the job. — Lieven Keersmaekers, Nov 27 '15 at 08:35
Thanks for reply but I want to do that with regular expression only. Is it possible? — Mukesh Singh, Nov 27 '15 at 09:58

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 27 '15 at 07:46

Don't use regular expressions for doing that. PowerShell offers you all what you need to deal with XML.

$xml = [xml] @"
<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Extensions" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35"/>
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-1.1.0.0" newVersion="3.5.0.0"/>
  </dependentAssembly>
  <dependentAssembly>
    <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Extensions.Design" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35"/>
    <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-1.1.0.0" newVersion="3.5.0.0"/>
  </dependentAssembly>
</assemblyBinding>
</runtime>
"@

$xml.runtime.assemblyBinding.RemoveAll()

$xml.Save("c:\temp\test.xml")

Regular expression in powershell to replace complete XML node with empty value

1 Answers1