Trimstart to delete all leading spaces in xml

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Hi,

I want to remove all the leading spaces from multiple xml files.

Before
[HTML]

[/HTML]

After Trim

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John,

Here’s a little PowerShell program to do the trick:

Code:

#Version: 1.0

$FileList = Get-ChildItem -Path "G:Test" -Filter "*.xml"

ForEach ($FSpec in $FileList) {

  $Lines = (get-content $FSpec.FullName)

  $Lines[1..($Lines.count -1)].TrimStart(" ") | 
  Set-Content $FSpec.FullName

} # End ForEach ($FSpec...

Results:
45397-StripXML

I started with your basic file and added the Identifying information Test 1 and Test2 including spaces on either side so you could see they didn’t get stripped.

If you haven’t used PowerShell you can check out THIS POST Items 1-3.

Here’s the code in a program file ready to go: 45398-Strip-XML-Leading-Spaces

Of course, you’ll need to change the -Path argument to fit your computer setup.

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Hi,

Please have a look i am getting this error.

$Lines[1..($Lines.count -1)].TrimStart(” “) |

Method invocation failed because [System.Object[]] doesn’t contain a method named ‘TrimStart’.
At C:Testtrim.ps1:7 char:41
+ $Lines[1..($Lines.count -1)].TrimStart <<<< (" ") |
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (TrimStart:String) [], RuntimeException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : MethodNotFound

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John,

In the PowerShell command window enter: $PSVersionTable this will provide the information on your version of powershell.

Example:
45409-psversiontable

Copy and paste it into your reply. :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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John,

Try this

Code:

foreach($file in (Get-ChildItem -Path ‘[B][COLOR=”#FF0000″]ENTER YOUR PATH HERE[/COLOR][/B]‘ -Filter ‘*.xml’)) {
  (Get-Content -Path $file.FullName) -replace ‘^s+’ |
  [B][/B]Set-Content -Path $file.FullName
}

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Hi,

Thanks Cliff.H your solution is working perfectly.

Thanks RG for supporting.

Thanks.

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Cliff,

Any Idea why he got the error? It worked perfectly on my machine. :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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RG,

No, I do not. I can only assume that at least one of the files read, did not return a string object, and therefore the ‘TrimStart()‘ caused the error.

BTW, this bit of code: $Lines[1..($Lines.count -1)].TrimStart(” “) skips the first line, so when the lines are written back to the file, the first line is missing.

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Cliff,

You always get me thinking and now I’ve learned a new thing about get-content. Seems you don’t have to iterate the lines you can just apply the method to the result as a whole (if you want to operate on the whole file that is).

I also liked your use of the Get-ChildItem right in the ForEach vs placing it in a variable.

Version 2:

Code:

#Version: 2.0

# Change $Path and $Filter. Will work on ANY Text type file!
$Path   = "G:Test"
$Filter = "*.xml"

ForEach ($FSpec in (Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Filter $Filter)) {

  (Get-Content $FSpec.FullName).TrimStart(" ") | 
   Set-Content $FSpec.FullName

} # End ForEach ($FSpec...

:cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Cliff,

OOPS! I modified some code that worked on .CSV files where I had to skip the headers. Your are correct it should be:

Code:

$Lines[0..($Lines.count -1)].TrimStart(" ")

That could have also caused the error if there was only one line in a file!

As always Cliff to the rescue! :thewave:

:cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Would an app that does this do? I use Notepad++ to edit text files. One of its features is trimming leading spaces. There is also an XML plugin available the will pretty-print the XML (I deal a lot with XML without any linefeeds – it’s all on one line).

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cafed00d,

I also use NP++ and love it. I knew you could do this there with regular expressions but I didn’t know it had the feature baked in. NP++ does so many things it’s hard to know all it’s features. Recently, I discovered the plugin for file compare. I’ve since been using it to death comparing one version of a PowerShell script to another and also comparing output files from different versions to quickly verify If I’ve messed something w/o having to go line by line. Needless to say I’m a big NP++ fan!

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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