powershell converting xml object to string - powershell

Question

I am trying to get just the value of the xml to create a directory. In the first line it will return a table with just the inner xml. However in the foreach loop it returns #{$_.Value.InnerXML=00000027627-00001} for $loanNumber. How can i convert this to just the number? is there a way i can cast it to a string and then split on the = sign? I ahve been currently trying that way and have not been succeeding. Is there a better way to just grab the value and not the junk before it?
cls
[xml]$file = Get-Content "F:\Peter Test\index.xml"
$hostdirectory = "F:\PShell Testing"
$file.ExportedResult.Docs.ExportedDoc.Doc.UdiValues.UdiValue | ? {$_.Name -eq "Loan Number"} | Select-Object {$_.Value.InnerXML} -Unique | Format-Table
foreach($loanNumber in $file.ExportedResult.Docs.ExportedDoc.Doc.UdiValues.UdiValue | ? {$_.Name -eq "Loan Number"} | Select-Object {$_.Value.InnerXML} -Unique){
Write-Host "hey"
Write-Host $loanNumber
$hostdirectoryPlusLoan = $hostdirectory + "\" + $loanNumber
if(!(test-path $hostdirectoryPlusLoan)){
New-Item $hostdirectoryPlusLoan -ItemType directory
}
}

Answer 1

Insert -ExpandProperty in your Select-Object command
Select-Object -ExpandProperty {$_.Value.InnerXML} -Unique
It should return just the "loannumber" string, "00000027627-00001" in this case.
And you can also do this:
$hostdirectoryPlusLoan = "$hostdirectory\$loanNumber"
instead of
$hostdirectoryPlusLoan = $hostdirectory + "\" + $loanNumber
Edit:
You use this at least twice:
$file.ExportedResult.Docs.ExportedDoc.Doc.UdiValues.UdiValue | ? {$.Name -eq "Loan Number"} | Select-Object {$.Value.InnerXML} -Unique
So what about saying
# use Select-Object <propertyName> -ExpandProperty -Unique twice to dig down into the nesting
# also, use "Where-Object" for "?"
# and mostly using a variable to hold the list of loan numbers so you don't have to filter and select exactly the same way twice.
$LoanNumberList = $file.ExportedResult.Docs.ExportedDoc.Doc.UdiValues.UdiValue | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq "Loan Number"} | Select-Object Value -ExpandProperty -Unique | Select-Object InnerXML -ExpandProperty -Unique
# assuming the above works, you can then use $LoanNumberList collection at will:
$LoanNumberList
foreach ($LoanNumber in $LoanNumberList) {
# do stuff
}