Thanks, the j_security check technique detailed in the second article helps logon and I can create two urls one to logon and one to get the detail, which if I click on them works perfectly, but if I run the powershell I get some web page javascript rubbish not the big xml docunment I want. This is very frustrating as the same sort of thing works fine when processing JSON for the scm command output and the xml output appears in the web page, how do I avoid the "JavaScript is disabled or not available in your browser" message which seems like a completely bogus message as I can get the xml file through other means

I think you've figured it out but just for future references - the server sends back what is compatible with the "Accept" request header. So if "Accept: text/html", you get a web page, while "Accept: application/xml" will give you XML response. Note that some particular URLs return only one type of content regardless the "Accept" header.

Thanks for the pointer Sam (was going to insert this answer as a comment, but ran out of space), if I am desperate I think I can run something like that within powershell but I would like to do it in a more modern fashion. I am already attempting to follow your sequence, though I expect I am making a silly error somewhere as it stubbornly refuses to work. The -SessionVariable should store the cookies in the login call and the -SessionVariable should use it. Note that you should be able to run my code on any RTC server, just substitute sever:port for something real as well as a real username and password. I think powershell and RTC can be used together very well and it should be more comfortable for most than using perl. code follows: -

add-type @"
    using System.Net;
    using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;
    public class TrustAllCertsPolicy : ICertificatePolicy {
        public bool CheckValidationResult(
            ServicePoint srvPoint, X509Certificate certificate,
            WebRequest request, int certificateProblem) {
            return true;
        }
    }
"@
[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::CertificatePolicy = New-Object TrustAllCertsPolicy

$myConn = new-object Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WebRequestSession
$webDetail = Invoke-WebRequest "https://server:port/ccm/web/j_security_check?j_username=me&j_password=pass" -SessionVariable $myConn -Debug -UseBasicParsing -Method POST
$stuff =Invoke-WebRequest "https://server:port/ccm/rpt/repository/scm?fields=scm/workspace/(projectArea/name|name|stream)" -Debug -UseBasicParsing -WebSession $myConn -Method POST -ContentType "application/xml"

[xml] $thisDoc = ( New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString("https://server:port/ccm/rpt/repository/scm?fields=scm%2Fworkspace%2F%28projectArea%2Fname%7Cname%7Cstream%29")

I think I'm coming a cropper with browser warnings and security settings, which mean I never get to see the XML output and get stuck at some warning screen, or possibly more likely the initial cookies are not being transferred to the actual REST call, hoping there is someone brighter than me who can see through the issues. I can achieve this sort of thing using java, but powershell is much easier for the kind of support I have in mind here

I have no experience with powershell, so really can't help

Hi Richard

You are right the answer is not totally complete, only obvious if you know the answer, messing around with JSON and XML in powershell is very easy once you learn a few tricks - good luck!

Try: -