(PowerShell) XML Tree Traversal Order for Search* Methods

The Chilkat XML API provides a number of Search* methods for locating XML nodes based on criteria. These methods traverse an XML document in a breadth-first order. (See Breadth-First Search).

The XML document used in this example has the following tree structure:

The nodes are traversed in the order: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K.

The input XML, available at http://www.chilkatsoft.com/data/searchOrder.xml, is this:

<a>crocodileA
    <b>crocodileB
        <d>crocodileD</d>
        <e>crocodileE
            <h>crocodileH</h>
            <i>crocodileI</i>
        </e>
    </b>
    <c>crocodileC
        <f>crocodileF</f>
        <g>crocodileG
            <j>crocodileJ</j>
            <k>crocodileK</k>
        </g>
    </c>
</a>

Chilkat .NET Downloads Chilkat .NET Assemblies

Add-Type -Path "C:\chilkat\ChilkatDotNet47-x64\ChilkatDotNet47.dll"

$xml = New-Object Chilkat.Xml

# The sample input XML is available at http://www.chilkatsoft.com/data/searchOrder.xml
$success = $xml.LoadXmlFile("searchOrder.xml")
if ($success -ne $true) {
    $($xml.LastErrorText)
    exit
}

# IMPORTANT:  The following loop for iterating over all 
# matching nodes performs reasonably well for small to 
# mid-size XML documents or sub-trees.  Performance
# can be poor when the sub-tree contains many thousands
# of nodes (or more).

# NOTE:  The search is always rooted at the calling node.
# In this example, it happens to also be the root node of the entire
# XML document.  Searches can be performed on sub-trees
# within the document by calling the Search* method from
# the root node of a sub-tree.

# Demonstrate the breadth-first traversal:
$xBeginAfter = $xml.GetSelf()
$xFound = $xml.SearchAllForContent($xBeginAfter,"*croc*")
while (($xml.LastMethodSuccess -eq $true)) {

    $($xFound.Tag)

    $xBeginAfter = $xFound
    $xFound = $xml.SearchAllForContent($xBeginAfter,"*croc*")
}