XmlStarlet

WebHome | UnixGeekTools | Geekfarm | About This Site

Pointers

Home - http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/
Users Guide - http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/doc/UG/
XmlValidation
EmacsnXML - nXML mode for emacs

UnixGeekTools - other great tools for unix geeks

Introduction

XMLStarlet is a set of command line utilities (tools) which can be used to transform, query, validate, and edit XML documents and files using simple set of shell commands in similar way it is done for plain text files using UNIX grep, sed, awk, diff, patch, join, etc commands.

This set of command line utilities can be used by those who deal with many XML documents on UNIX shell command prompt as well as for automated XML processing with shell scripts.

The toolkit's feature set includes options to:

Check or validate XML files (simple well-formedness check, DTD, XSD, RelaxNG)
Calculate values of XPath expressions on XML files (such as running sums, etc)
Search XML files for matches to given XPath expressions
Apply XSLT stylesheets to XML documents (including EXSLT support, and passing parameters to stylesheets)
Query XML documents (ex. query for value of some elements of attributes, sorting, etc)
Modify or edit XML documents (ex. delete some elements)
Format or "beautify" XML documents (as changing indentation, etc)
Fetch XML documents using http:// or ftp:// URLs
Browse tree structure of XML documents (in similar way to 'ls' command for directories)
Include one XML document into another using XInclude
XML c14n canonicalization
Escape/unescape special XML characters in input text
Print directory as XML document
Convert XML into PYX format (based on ESIS - ISO 8879), and vice versa

source

Dependencies

libxml2 - http://xmlsoft.org/sources/

Quick Usage

    # show all elements in xml file
    xml el <file.xml>

    # show elements in xml file including attributes
    xml el -a <file.xml>

    # show elements in xml file including attribute values
    xml el -v <file.xml>

sel


    # print matching text, one line each
    xml sel -t -m "/log-summary/xref" -c . -n

    # warning - appropriate use of "" or '' is important!
    xml sel -t -c "//log-summary/xref/transaction[@name='getPlannedContactList']/location[@name='2543']" -n

    xml sel -t -c "xpath0" -m "xpath1" -m "xpath2" -v "xpath3" -t -m "xpath4" -c "xpath5"

    xml sel -t -m "/log-summary/time" -v "@name" -n ~/tmp/test.xml
    xml sel -t -m "/log-summary/time" -v "concat( @name,'  ',@duration,'  ',@count)" -n ~/tmp/test.xml

Usage


    XMLStarlet Toolkit: Command line utilities for XML
    Usage: xml [<options>] <command> [<cmd-options>]
    where <command> is one of:
      ed    (or edit)      - Edit/Update XML document(s)
      sel   (or select)    - Select data or query XML document(s) (XPATH, etc)
      tr    (or transform) - Transform XML document(s) using XSLT
      val   (or validate)  - Validate XML document(s) (well-formed/DTD/XSD/RelaxNG)
      fo    (or format)    - Format XML document(s)
      el    (or elements)  - Display element structure of XML document
      c14n  (or canonic)   - XML canonicalization
      ls    (or list)      - List directory as XML
      esc   (or escape)    - Escape special XML characters
      unesc (or unescape)  - Unescape special XML characters
      pyx   (or xmln)      - Convert XML into PYX format (based on ESIS - ISO 8879)
      p2x   (or depyx)     - Convert PYX into XML
    <options> are:
      --version            - show version
      --help               - show help
    Wherever file name mentioned in command help it is assumed
    that URL can be used instead as well.

    Type: xml <command> --help <ENTER> for command help

    XMLStarlet is a command line toolkit to query/edit/check/transform
    XML documents (for more information see http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/)