Automating config file changes : Part 3 – Deleting an element from an XML file
This post talks about removing an existing XML element from the config file. Consider a scenario where we have the following web.config file saved at location C:\MyApplication
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<configSections>
<sectionGroup name="system.web">
<section name="myConfigSection”/>
</sectionGroup>
</configSections>
<system.webServer>
<modules>
<add name="moduleToRemove”/>
<add name="moduleToKeep”/>
</modules>
</system.webServer>
<system.web>
<customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="Error.htm">
<error statusCode="404" redirect="http://myAppDevWeb/404.aspx"/>
</customErrors>
</system.web>
<appSettings>
<add key="DBServer" value="myAppDevDB"/>
</appSettings>
</configuration> |
The requirement is to remove the <configSections> and the module “moduleToRemove” . These sections are marked in Red.
The resultant file should look like this
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<modules>
<add name="moduleToKeep”/>
</modules>
</system.webServer>
<system.web>
<customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="Error.htm">
<error statusCode="404" redirect="http://myAppDevWeb/404.aspx"/>
</customErrors>
</system.web>
<appSettings>
<add key="DBServer" value="myAppDevDB"/>
</appSettings>
</configuration> |
Lets have a look at the Powershell script we will be using. We will name this script RemoveElement.ps1 and save it in C:\Scripts
| # Declaring the parameter to be passed while executing the Powershell script Param (
$webConfigPath # Path to the web.config file. Make sure file is not read-only
) $xml = [xml](get-content $webConfigPath) # Create XML object and open the web.config file $nodeToRemove= $xml.configuration.SelectSingleNode("configSections"); # Selecting the Element to be removed
$xml.configuration.RemoveChild($nodeToRemove); # Remove the Element foreach( $item in $xml.configuration."system.webServer".modules.add ) # Traverse through all modules
{
if( $item.name -eq "moduleToRemove" ) # Checking if the current module is to be removed
{
$xml.configuration."system.webServer".modules.RemoveChild($item); # Remove the desired module when found
}
} $xml.Save($webConfigPath) # Save the updated web.config file |
Run the script:
c:\>Powershell
PS C:\> cd scripts
PS C:\scripts> .\RemoveElement.ps1 “C:\MyApplication\web.config”
Related Posts:
Automating config file changes : Part 1 – Installing Microsoft Windows Powershell
Automating config file changes : Part 2 – modifying already existing config keys
