Come on now, you're missing the point. If the lingua franca of your shell is objects instead of text, you can import from whatever format you want and work wit

Come on now, you're missing the point. If the lingua franca of your shell is objects instead of text, you can import from whatever format you want and work with it in high fidelity: PS C:\> $x = [XML]"<banana><stem>brown</stem><peel>yellow</peel><flesh>white</flesh></banana>" PS C:\> $x.banana.peel yellow PS C:\> $x = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject '[{"banana" : {"stem" : "brown", "peel" : "yellow", "flesh" : "white"}}]' PS C:\> $x.banana.peel yellow PS C:\> $x = New-Object PSObject -Property @{banana = New-Object PSObject -Property @{stem = "brown"; peel = "yellow"; flesh = "white"}} PS C:\> $x.banana.peel yellow PS C:\> $x = @{banana = @{stem = "brown"; peel = "yellow"; flesh = "white"}} PS C:\> $x.banana.peel yellow