powershell - Accessing XML element values with names 'name' and 'value' -

in powershell, given following partial xml structure:

<extraattributes enabled="1" perbuildingenabled="0" perbuildingmode="0">   <!--perbuildingmode 0: inclusively district , building, mode 1: exclusively building-->   <attributes>     <a enabled="1">       <name>mail</name>       <value>$userprincipalname</value>     </a>     <a enabled="1">       <name>ipphone</name>       <value>123456</value>     </a>   </attributes> </extraattributes> 

if try access value of 1 of value elements following:

# $extraattributes extracted [xml.xmlelement] [xml.xmldocument] foreach ($att in ($extraattributes.attributes.childnodes | { [int]$_.enabled -eq $true })) {     write-host "name: $($att.name), value: $($att.value)" } 

it works fine...however, if there single a element under attributes so:

<extraattributes enabled="1" perbuildingenabled="0" perbuildingmode="0">   <!--perbuildingmode 0: inclusively district , building, mode 1: exclusively building-->   <attributes>     <a enabled="1">       <name>mail</name>       <value>$userprincipalname</value>     </a>   </attributes> </extraattributes> 

powershell thinks $att.value $null.

how can access element values when single a element present same foreach loop? xml can restructured, i'm trying avoid that.

instead of using childnodes, used element name a such:

foreach ($att in ($extraattributes.attributes.a | { [int]$_.enabled -eq $true })) { write-host "name: $($att.name), value: $($att.value)" } 

and works expected whether there 1 or multiple a elements. never figured out why childnodes doesn't allow work.