Convert String from XML to Array - powershell

Question

I am setting up a unattended installation of a software with PowerShell.
If I use the following code to set an argument ($Servers) for the installer, the installation is OK:
$Servers = "Server1.$($env:USERDNSDOMAIN)","Server2.$($env:USERDNSDOMAIN)"
But I want to get the settings from an external XML file like this one:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Settings>
<Servers>"Server1.$($env:USERDNSDOMAIN)","Server2.$($env:USERDNSDOMAIN)"</Servers>
</Settings>
I use the following code to retrieve the data in Powershell:
[Xml]$xmlConfigFile = Get-Content -Path "C:\Temp\Settings.xml"
$Servers = $ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.ExpandString($xmlConfigFile.Settings.Servers)
This does NOT work. The install fails.
I think this is because I get a string back from the XML and not an array like in the first example above.
What is the best method to workaround the issue?
I thought about .Split(","), but the quotes are a problem. I also tried ConvertFrom-Csv, but this didn't work either.
EDIT:
The output of the variable $Servers when it's working is:
Server1.domain.local
Server2.domain.local
The ouput of the variable $Server when coming from XML is:
"Server1.domain.local","Server2.domain.local"

Answer 1

Yes, the value you get from the XML data is a single string, not an array, so you need to split it to go from string to array. You could remove the double quotes before splitting the string (PowerShell allows you to daisy-chain method calls that return a value):
$Servers = $Servers.Replace('"', '').Split(',')
However, a much better approach would be to fix your input data by putting the values in separate nodes:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Settings>
<Servers>
<Server>Server1.$($env:USERDNSDOMAIN)</Server>
<Server>Server2.$($env:USERDNSDOMAIN)</Server>
</Servers>
</Settings>
so you can process the data like this:
$Servers = $xmlConfigFile.Settings.Servers.Server | ForEach-Object {
$ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.ExpandString($_)
}
or like this:
$Servers = $xmlConfigFile.SelectNodes('//Server') | ForEach-Object {
$ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.ExpandString($_.'#text')
}