How do you comment out an XML node using Powershell 3.0?

Question

I would like to comment out an XML node in a configuration file using Powershell 3.0.

For instance, if this is my config.xml file:

<node>
    <foo type="bar" />
</node>

I would like my script to change the file to this:

<node>
    <!-- <foo type="bar" /> -->
</node>

I am looking to do this using Powershell 3.0's native XML/XPATH functionality, and not match/regex-based string replacement.

Answer 1

Use CreateComment() to create a new comment node containing the existing node's XML, then remove the existing:

$xml = [xml]@'
<node>
    <foo type="bar" />
</node>
'@

# Find all <foo> nodes with type="bar"
foreach($node in $xml.SelectNodes('//foo[@type="bar"]')){
  # Create new comment node
  $newComment = $xml.CreateComment($node.OuterXml)

  # Add as sibling to existing node
  $node.ParentNode.InsertBefore($newComment, $node) |Out-Null

  # Remove existing node
  $node.ParentNode.RemoveChild($node) |Out-Null
}

# Export/save $xml