Import-Clixml

Import-Clixml
    [-Path] <String[]>
    [-IncludeTotalCount]
    [-Skip <UInt64>]
    [-First <UInt64>]
    [<CommonParameters>]

Import-Clixml
    -LiteralPath <String[]>
    [-IncludeTotalCount]
    [-Skip <UInt64>]
    [-First <UInt64>]
    [<CommonParameters>]

The Import-Clixml cmdlet imports a Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) XML file with data that represents Microsoft .NET Framework objects and creates the PowerShell objects. For more information about CLI, see Language independence.

A valuable use of Import-Clixml on Windows computers is to import credentials and secure strings that were exported as secure XML using Export-Clixml. For an example, see Example 2.

Import-Clixml uses the byte-order-mark (BOM) to detect the encoding format of the file. If the file has no BOM, it assumes the encoding is UTF8.

This example uses the Export-Clixml cmdlet to save a serialized copy of the process information returned by Get-Process. Import-Clixml retrieves the serialized file's contents and recreates an object that is stored in the $Processes variable.

Get-Process | Export-Clixml -Path .\pi.xml
$Processes = Import-Clixml -Path .\pi.xml

In this example, given a credential that you've stored in the $Credential variable by running the Get-Credential cmdlet, you can run the Export-Clixml cmdlet to save the credential to disk.

$Credxmlpath = Join-Path (Split-Path $Profile) TestScript.ps1.credential
$Credential | Export-Clixml $Credxmlpath
$Credxmlpath = Join-Path (Split-Path $Profile) TestScript.ps1.credential
$Credential = Import-Clixml $Credxmlpath

The Export-Clixml cmdlet encrypts credential objects by using the Windows Data Protection API. The encryption ensures that only your user account can decrypt the contents of the credential object. The exported CLIXML file can't be used on a different computer or by a different user.

In the example, the file in which the credential is stored is represented by TestScript.ps1.credential. Replace TestScript with the name of the script with which you're loading the credential.

You send the credential object down the pipeline to Export-Clixml, and save it to the path, $Credxmlpath, that you specified in the first command.

To import the credential automatically into your script, run the final two commands. Run Import-Clixml to import the secured credential object into your script. This import eliminates the risk of exposing plain-text passwords in your script.

This cmdlet supports the common parameters: -Debug, -ErrorAction, -ErrorVariable, -InformationAction, -InformationVariable, -OutBuffer, -OutVariable, -PipelineVariable, -ProgressAction, -Verbose, -WarningAction, and -WarningVariable. For more information, see about_CommonParameters.

You can pipeline a string that contains a path to Import-Clixml.

Import-Clixml returns objects that were deserialized from the stored XML files.

When specifying multiple values for a parameter, use commas to separate the values. For example, <parameter-name> <value1>, <value2>.