Here is a list of sites where you can also find XmlStarlet binary packages.

You might be able to compile and make it on others too.

Here is a list of platforms on which XmlStarlet is known to work.

Convert XML into PYX format (based on ESIS - ISO 8879), and vice versa

Include one XML document into another using XInclude

Browse tree structure of XML documents (in similar way to 'ls' command for directories)

Format or "beautify" XML documents (as changing indentation, etc)

Modify or edit XML documents (ex. delete some elements)

Query XML documents (ex. query for value of some elements of attributes, sorting, etc)

Apply XSLT stylesheets to XML documents (including EXSLT support, and passing parameters to stylesheets)

Search XML files for matches to given XPath expressions

Calculate values of XPath expressions on XML files (such as running sums, etc)

We welcome any user's feedback on this project which would greatly help us to improve its quality. Comments, suggestions, feature requests, bug reports can be done via SourceForge project web site (see XMLStarlet Sourceforge forums , or XMLStarlet mailing list )

XMLStarlet is open source freeware under MIT license which allows free use and distribution for both commercial and non-commercial projects.

XMLStarlet is linked statically to both libxml2 and libxslt, so generally all you need to process XML documents is one executable file. To run XmlStarlet utility you can simple type 'xml' on command line and see list of options available.

'diff' and 'patch' options are not currently implemented. Other features need some work too. Please, send an email to the project administrator (see http://sourceforge.net/projects/xmlstar/ ) if you wish to help.

XMLStarlet command line utility is written in C and uses libxml2 and libxslt from http://xmlsoft.org/ . Implementation of extensive choice of options for XMLStarlet utility was only possible because of rich feature set of libxml2 and libxslt (many thanks to the developers of those libraries for great work).

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.

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.

Unzip the file xmlstarlet-x.x.x-win32.zip to some directory. To take advantage of UNIX shell scripting you might want to run XmlStarlet from Cygwin. Consider installing Cygwin on your Windows machine.

XmlStarlet is available on MacOS in Fink. See fink.sourceforge.net

Execute the following commands as root

You can use http://rpmfind.net to search for RPM appropriate for your distribution.

Execute the following command as root

If you are looking for attribute values as well use -v switch of 'el' option. And again - every line of output is a valid XPath expression.

If you are interested not just in elements of your XML document, but you want to see attributes as well you can use -a switch with 'el' option. And every line of the output will still be a valid XPath expression.

XML documents can be pretty large but with a very simple structure. (This is espesially true for data driven XML documents ex: XML formatted result of select from SQL table). If you just interested in structure but not order of the elements you can use -u switch combined with 'el' option.

Every line in this output is an XPath expression which indicates a 'path' to elements in XML document. You would use these XPath expressions to navigate through your XML documents in other XmlStarlet options.

would produce the following output.

Let's say you have the following XML document (table.xml)

Before you do anything with your XML document you probably would like to know its structure at first. 'el' option could be used for this purpose.

Chapter 4. XmlStarlet Reference

1. Querying XML documents XmlStarlet 'select' or 'sel' option can be used to query or search XML documents. Here is synopsis for 'xml sel' command: XMLStarlet Toolkit: Select from XML document(s) Usage: xml sel <global-options> {<template>} [ <xml-file> ... ] where <global-options> - global options for selecting <xml-file> - input XML document file name/uri (stdin is used if missing) <template> - template for querying XML document with following syntax: <global-options> are: -Q or --quiet - do not write anything to standard output. -C or --comp - display generated XSLT -R or --root - print root element <xsl-select> -T or --text - output is text (default is XML) -I or --indent - indent output -D or --xml-decl - do not omit xml declaration line -B or --noblanks - remove insignificant spaces from XML tree -E or --encode <encoding> - output in the given encoding (utf-8, unicode...) -N <name>=<value> - predefine namespaces (name without 'xmlns:') ex: xsql=urn:oracle-xsql Multiple -N options are allowed. --net - allow fetch DTDs or entities over network --help - display help Syntax for templates: -t|--template <options> where <options> -c or --copy-of <xpath> - print copy of XPATH expression -v or --value-of <xpath> - print value of XPATH expression -o or --output <string> - output string literal -n or --nl - print new line -f or --inp-name - print input file name (or URL) -m or --match <xpath> - match XPATH expression --var <name> <value> --break or --var <name>=<value> - declare a variable (referenced by $name) -i or --if <test-xpath> - check condition <xsl:if test="test-xpath"> --elif <test-xpath> - check condition if previous conditions failed --else - check if previous conditions failed -e or --elem <name> - print out element <xsl:element name="name"> -a or --attr <name> - add attribute <xsl:attribute name="name"> -b or --break - break nesting -s or --sort op xpath - sort in order (used after -m) where op is X:Y:Z, X is A - for order="ascending" X is D - for order="descending" Y is N - for data-type="numeric" Y is T - for data-type="text" Z is U - for case-order="upper-first" Z is L - for case-order="lower-first" There can be multiple --match, --copy-of, --value-of, etc options in a single template. The effect of applying command line templates can be illustrated with the following XSLT analogue xml sel -t -c "xpath0" -m "xpath1" -m "xpath2" -v "xpath3" \ -t -m "xpath4" -c "xpath5" is equivalent to applying the following XSLT <?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:call-template name="t1"/> <xsl:call-template name="t2"/> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="t1"> <xsl:copy-of select="xpath0"/> <xsl:for-each select="xpath1"> <xsl:for-each select="xpath2"> <xsl:value-of select="xpath3"/> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="t2"> <xsl:for-each select="xpath4"> <xsl:copy-of select="xpath5"/> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> 'select' option allows you basically avoid writting XSLT stylesheet to perform some queries on XML documents. I.e. various combinations of command line parameters will let you to generate XSLT stylesheet and apply in to XML documents with a single command line. Very often you do not really care what XSLT was created for you 'select' command, but in those cases when you do; you can always use -C or --comp switch which will let you see exactly which XSLT is applied to your input. 'select' option supports many EXSLT functions in XPath expressions. Here are few examples which will help to understand how 'xml select' works: EXAMPLE: Count elements matching XPath expression: xml sel -t -v "count(/xml/table/rec/numField)" table.xml Input (table.xml): <xml> <table> <rec id="1"> <numField>123</numField> <stringField>String Value</stringField> </rec> <rec id="2"> <numField>346</numField> <stringField>Text Value</stringField> </rec> <rec id="3"> <numField>-23</numField> <stringField>stringValue</stringField> </rec> </table> </xml> Output: 3 Let's take a close look what it did internally. For that we will use '-C' option $ xml sel -C -t -v "count(/xml/table/rec/numField)" <?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:exslt="http://exslt.org/common" xmlns:math="http://exslt.org/math" xmlns:date="http://exslt.org/dates-and-times" xmlns:func="http://exslt.org/functions" xmlns:set="http://exslt.org/sets" xmlns:str="http://exslt.org/strings" xmlns:dyn="http://exslt.org/dynamic" xmlns:saxon="http://icl.com/saxon" xmlns:xalanredirect="org.apache.xalan.xslt.extensions.Redirect" xmlns:xt="http://www.jclark.com/xt" xmlns:libxslt="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/namespace" xmlns:test="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/" extension-element-prefixes= "exslt math date func set str dyn saxon xalanredirect xt libxslt test" exclude-result-prefixes="math str"> <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="no"/> <xsl:param name="inputFile">-</xsl:param> <xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:call-template name="t1"/> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="t1"> <xsl:value-of select="count(/xml/table/rec/numField)"/> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> Ignoring some XSLT stuff to make it brief: <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="no"/> <xsl:param name="inputFile">-</xsl:param> <xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:call-template name="t1"/> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="t1"> <xsl:value-of select="count(/xml/table/rec/numField)"/> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> Every -t option is mapped into XSLT template. Options after '-t' are mapped into XSLT elements: -v to <xsl:value-of>

-c to <xsl:copy-of>

-e to <xsl:element>

-a to <xsl:attribute>

-s to <xsl:sort>

-m to <xsl:for-each>

-i to <xsl:if>

and so on By default subsequent options (for instance: -m) will result in nested corresponding XSLT elements (<xsl:for-each> for '-m'). To break this nesting you would have to put '-b' or '--break' after first '-m'. Below are few more examples: EXAMPLE Count all nodes in XML documents. Print input name and node count after it. xml sel -t -f -o " " -v "count(//node())" xml/table.xml xml/tab-obj.xml Output: xml/table.xml 32 xml/tab-obj.xml 41 EXAMPLE Find XML files matching XPath expression (containing 'object' element) xml sel -t -m //object -f xml/table.xml xml/tab-obj.xml Result output: xml/tab-obj.xml EXAMPLE Calculate EXSLT (XSLT extentions) XPath value echo "<x/>" | xml sel -t -v "math:abs(-1000)" Result output: 1000 EXAMPLE Adding elements and attributes using command line 'xml sel' echo "<x/>" | xml sel -t -m / -e xml -e child -a data -o value Result Output: <xml><child data="value"/></xml> EXAMPLE Query XML document and produce sorted text table xml sel -T -t -m /xml/table/rec -s D:N:- "@id" \ -v "concat(@id,'|',numField,'|',stringField)" -n xml/table.xml Result Output: 3|-23|stringValue 2|346|Text Value 1|123|String Value Equivalent stylesheet <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="no" method="text"/> <xsl:param name="inputFile">-</xsl:param> <xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:call-template name="t1"/> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="t1"> <xsl:for-each select="/xml/table/rec"> <xsl:sort order="descending" data-type="number" case-order="upper-first" select="@id"/> <xsl:value-of select="concat(@id,'|',numField,'|',stringField)"/> <xsl:value-of select="' '"/> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> EXAMPLE Predefine namespaces for XPath expressions xml sel -N xsql=urn:oracle-xsql -t -v /xsql:query xsql/jobserve.xsql Input (xsql/jobserve.xsql) $ cat xsql/jobserve.xsql <?xml version="1.0"?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="jobserve.xsl"?> <xsql:query connection="jobs" xmlns:xsql="urn:oracle-xsql" max-rows="5"> SELECT substr(title,1,26) short_title, title, location, skills FROM job WHERE UPPER(title) LIKE '%ORACLE%' ORDER BY first_posted DESC </xsql:query> Result output SELECT substr(title,1,26) short_title, title, location, skills FROM job WHERE UPPER(title) LIKE '%ORACLE%' ORDER BY first_posted DESC EXAMPLE Print structure of XML element using xml sel (advanced XPath expressions and xml sel command usage) xml sel -T -t -m '//*' \ -m 'ancestor-or-self::*' -v 'name()' -i 'not(position()=last())' -o . -b -b -n \ xml/structure.xml Input (xml/structure.xml) <a1> <a11> <a111> <a1111/> </a111> <a112> <a1121/> </a112> </a11> <a12/> <a13> <a131/> </a13> </a1> Result Output: a1 a1.a11 a1.a11.a111 a1.a11.a111.a1111 a1.a11.a112 a1.a11.a112.a1121 a1.a12 a1.a13 a1.a13.a131 This example is a good demonstration of nesting control. Here is corresponding XSLT: <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="no" method="text"/> <xsl:param name="inputFile">-</xsl:param> <xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:call-template name="t1"/> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="t1"> <xsl:for-each select="//*"> <xsl:for-each select="ancestor-or-self::*"> <xsl:value-of select="name()"/> <xsl:if test="not(position()=last())"> <xsl:value-of select="'.'"/> </xsl:if> </xsl:for-each> <xsl:value-of select="' '"/> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> EXAMPLE Print all links of xhtml document xml sel --net --html -T -t -m "//*[local-name()='a']" \ -o 'NAME: ' -v "translate(. , ' ', ' ')" -n \ -o 'LINK: ' -v @href -n -n \ http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/ Sample output NAME: XmlStarlet SourceForge Site LINK: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xmlstar/ NAME: XmlStarlet CVS Source LINK: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/xmlstar/ NAME: XmlStarlet on Freshmeat.Net LINK: http://freshmeat.net/projects/xmlstarlet/ NAME: XMLStarlet Sourceforge forums LINK: http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=66612 NAME: XMLStarlet mailing list LINK: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xmlstar-devel

2. Transforming XML documents Here is synopsis for 'xml tr' command: XMLStarlet Toolkit: Transform XML document(s) using XSLT Usage: xml tr [<options>] <xsl-file> {-p|-s <name>=<value>} [ <xml-file-or-uri> ... ] where <xsl-file> - main XSLT stylesheet for transformation <xml-file> - input XML document file name (stdin is used if missing) <name>=<value> - name and value of the parameter passed to XSLT processor -p - parameter is XPATH expression ("'string'" to quote string) -s - parameter is a string literal <options> are: --omit-decl - omit xml declaration <?xml version="1.0"?> --show-ext - show list of extensions --val - allow validate against DTDs or schemas --net - allow fetch DTDs or entities over network --xinclude - do XInclude processing on document input --maxdepth val - increase the maximum depth --html - input document(s) is(are) in HTML format --catalogs - use SGML catalogs from $SGML_CATALOG_FILES otherwise XML catalogs starting from file:///etc/xml/catalog are activated by default XMLStarlet is a command line toolkit to query/edit/check/transform XML documents (for more information see http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/) Current implementation uses libxslt from GNOME codebase as XSLT processor (see http://xmlsoft.org/ for more details) EXAMPLE: # Transform passing parameters to XSLT stylesheet xml tr xsl/param1.xsl -p Count='count(/xml/table/rec)' -s Text="Count=" xml/table.xml Input xsl/params1.xsl <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output method="text"/> <xsl:param name="Text"/> <xsl:param name="Count"/> <xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:call-template name="t1"/> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="t1"> <xsl:for-each select="/xml"> <xsl:value-of select="$Text"/> <xsl:value-of select="$Count"/> <xsl:value-of select="' '"/> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> Output Count=3

3. Editing XML documents Here is the synopsis for 'xml ed' command: XMLStarlet Toolkit: Edit XML document(s) Usage: xml ed <global-options> {<action>} [ <xml-file-or-uri> ... ] where <global-options> - global options for editing <xml-file-or-uri> - input XML document file name/uri (stdin is used if missing) <global-options> are: -P (or --pf) - preserve original formatting -S (or --ps) - preserve non-significant spaces -O (or --omit-decl) - omit XML declaration (<?xml ...?>) -N <name>=<value> - predefine namespaces (name without 'xmlns:') ex: xsql=urn:oracle-xsql Multiple -N options are allowed. -N options must be last global options. --help or -h - display help where <action> -d or --delete <xpath> -i or --insert <xpath> -t (--type) elem|text|attr -n <name> -v (--value) <value> -a or --append <xpath> -t (--type) elem|text|attr -n <name> -v (--value) <value> -s or --subnode <xpath> -t (--type) elem|text|attr -n <name> -v (--value) <value> -m or --move <xpath1> <xpath2> -r or --rename <xpath1> -v <new-name> -u or --update <xpath> -v (--value) <value> -x (--expr) <xpath> XMLStarlet is a command line toolkit to query/edit/check/transform XML documents (for more information see http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/) EXAMPLE: # Delete elements matching XPath expression xml ed -d "/xml/table/rec[@id='2']" xml/table.xml Input <xml> <table> <rec id="1"> <numField>123</numField> <stringField>String Value</stringField> </rec> <rec id="2"> <numField>346</numField> <stringField>Text Value</stringField> </rec> <rec id="3"> <numField>-23</numField> <stringField>stringValue</stringField> </rec> </table> </xml> Output <xml> <table> <rec id="1"> <numField>123</numField> <stringField>String Value</stringField> </rec> <rec id="3"> <numField>-23</numField> <stringField>stringValue</stringField> </rec> </table> </xml> EXAMPLE # Move element node echo '<x id="1"><a/><b/></x>' | xml ed -m "//b" "//a" Output <x id="1"> <a> <b/> </a> </x> EXAMPLE # Rename attributes xml ed -r "//*/@id" -v ID xml/tab-obj.xml Output: <xml> <table> <rec ID="1"> <numField>123</numField> <stringField>String Value</stringField> <object name="Obj1"> <property name="size">10</property> <property name="type">Data</property> </object> </rec> <rec ID="2"> <numField>346</numField> <stringField>Text Value</stringField> </rec> <rec ID="3"> <numField>-23</numField> <stringField>stringValue</stringField> </rec> </table> </xml> EXAMPLE # Rename elements xml ed -r "/xml/table/rec" -v record xml/tab-obj.xml Output: <xml> <table> <record id="1"> <numField>123</numField> <stringField>String Value</stringField> <object name="Obj1"> <property name="size">10</property> <property name="type">Data</property> </object> </record> <record id="2"> <numField>346</numField> <stringField>Text Value</stringField> </record> <record id="3"> <numField>-23</numField> <stringField>stringValue</stringField> </record> </table> </xml> EXAMPLE # Update value of an attribute xml ed -u "/xml/table/rec[@id=3]/@id" -v 5 xml/tab-obj.xml Output: <xml> <table> <rec id="1"> <numField>123</numField> <stringField>String Value</stringField> <object name="Obj1"> <property name="size">10</property> <property name="type">Data</property> </object> </rec> <rec id="2"> <numField>346</numField> <stringField>Text Value</stringField> </rec> <rec id="5"> <numField>-23</numField> <stringField>stringValue</stringField> </rec> </table> </xml> EXAMPLE # Update value of an element xml ed -u "/xml/table/rec[@id=1]/numField" -v 0 xml/tab-obj.xml Output: <xml> <table> <rec id="1"> <numField>0</numField> <stringField>String Value</stringField> <object name="Obj1"> <property name="size">10</property> <property name="type">Data</property> </object> </rec> <rec id="2"> <numField>346</numField> <stringField>Text Value</stringField> </rec> <rec id="3"> <numField>-23</numField> <stringField>stringValue</stringField> </rec> </table> </xml>

4. Validating XML documents Here is synopsis for 'xml val' command: XMLStarlet Toolkit: Validate XML document(s) Usage: xml val <options> [ <xml-file-or-uri> ... ] where <options> -w or --well-formed - validate well-formedness only (default) -d or --dtd <dtd-file> - validate against DTD -s or --xsd <xsd-file> - validate against XSD schema -r or --relaxng <rng-file> - validate against Relax-NG schema -e or --err - print verbose error messages on stderr -b or --list-bad - list only files which do not validate -g or --list-good - list only files which validate -q or --quiet - do not list files (return result code only) NOTE: XML Schemas are not fully supported yet due to its incomplete support in libxml (see http://xmlsoft.org) XMLStarlet is a command line toolkit to query/edit/check/transform XML documents (for more information see http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/) EXAMPLE # Validate XML document against DTD xml val --dtd dtd/table.dtd xml/tab-obj.xml >/dev/null 2>&1; echo $? Output: 1 EXAMPLE # Validate against XSD schema xml val -b -s xsd/table.xsd xml/table.xml xml/tab-obj.xml 2>/dev/null; echo $? Output: xml/tab-obj.xml 1

5. Formatting XML documents Here is synopsis for 'xml fo' command: XMLStarlet Toolkit: Format XML document Usage: xml fo [<options>] <xml-file> where <options> are -n or --noindent - do not indent -t or --indent-tab - indent output with tabulation -s or --indent-spaces <num> - indent output with <num> spaces -o or --omit-decl - omit xml declaration <?xml version="1.0"?> -R or --recover - try to recover what is parsable -D or --dropdtd - remove the DOCTYPE of the input docs -C or --nocdata - replace cdata section with text nodes -N or --nsclean - remove redundant namespace declarations -e or --encode <encoding> - output in the given encoding (utf-8, unicode...) -H or --html - input is HTML -h or --help - print help XMLStarlet is a command line toolkit to query/edit/check/transform XML documents (for more information see http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/) EXAMPLE # Format XML document disabling indent cat xml/tab-obj.xml | xml fo --noindent Output: <xml> <table> <rec id="1"> <numField>123</numField> <stringField>String Value</stringField> <object name="Obj1"> <property name="size">10</property> <property name="type">Data</property> </object> </rec> <rec id="2"> <numField>346</numField> <stringField>Text Value</stringField> </rec> <rec id="3"> <numField>-23</numField> <stringField>stringValue</stringField> </rec> </table> </xml> EXAMPLE # Recover malformed XML document xml fo -R xml/malformed.xml 2>/dev/null Input: <test_output> <test_name>foo</testname> <subtest>...</subtest> </test_output> Output: <test_output> <test_name>foo</test_name> <subtest>...</subtest> </test_output>

6. Canonicalization of XML documents Here is synopsis for 'xml c14n' command: XMLStarlet Toolkit: XML canonicalization Usage: xml c14n <mode> <xml-file> [<xpath-file>] [<inclusive-ns-list>] where <xml-file> - input XML document file name (stdin is used if '-') <xpath-file> - XML file containing XPath expression for c14n XML canonicalization Example: <?xml version="1.0"?> <XPath xmlns:n0="http://a.example.com" xmlns:n1="http://b.example"> (//. | //@* | //namespace::*)[ancestor-or-self::n1:elem1] </XPath> <inclusive-ns-list> - the list of inclusive namespace prefixes (only for exclusive canonicalization) Example: 'n1 n2' <mode> is one of following: --with-comments XML file canonicalization w comments (default) --without-comments XML file canonicalization w/o comments --exc-with-comments Exclusive XML file canonicalization w comments --exc-without-comments Exclusive XML file canonicalization w/o comments XMLStarlet is a command line toolkit to query/edit/check/transform XML documents (for more information see http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/) EXAMPLE # XML canonicalization xml c14n --with-comments ../examples/xml/structure.xml ; echo $? Input ../examples/xml/structure.xml <a1> <a11> <a111> <a1111/> </a111> <a112> <a1121/> </a112> </a11> <a12/> <a13> <a131/> </a13> </a1> Output <a1> <a11> <a111> <a1111></a1111> </a111> <a112> <a1121></a1121> </a112> </a11> <a12></a12> <a13> <a131></a131> </a13> </a1> 0 EXAMPLE # XML exclusive canonicalization xml c14n --exc-with-comments ../examples/xml/c14n.xml ../examples/xml/c14n.xpath Input ../examples/xml/c14n.xml <n0:pdu xmlns:n0='http://a.example.com'> <n1:elem1 xmlns:n1='http://b.example'> content </n1:elem1> </n0:pdu> ../examples/xml/c14n.xpath <XPath xmlns:n0="http://a.example.com" xmlns:n1="http://b.example"> (//. | //@* | //namespace::*)[ancestor-or-self::n1:elem1] </XPath> Output <n1:elem1 xmlns:n1="http://b.example"> content </n1:elem1>

7. XML and PYX format Here is synopsis for 'xml pyx' command: XMLStarlet Toolkit: Convert XML into PYX format (based on ESIS - ISO 8879) Usage: xml pyx {<xml-file>} where <xml-file> - input XML document file name (stdin is used if missing) The PYX format is a line-oriented representation of XML documents that is derived from the SGML ESIS format. (see ESIS - ISO 8879 Element Structure Information Set spec, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC18/WG8 N931 (ESIS)) A non-validating, ESIS generating tool originally developed for pyxie project (see http://pyxie.sourceforge.net/) ESIS Generation by Sean Mc Grath http://www.digitome.com/sean.html XMLStarlet is a command line toolkit to query/edit/check/transform XML documents (for more information see http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/) EXAMPLE xml pyx input.xml Input (input.xml) <books> <book type='hardback'> <title>Atlas Shrugged</title> <author>Ayn Rand</author> <isbn id='1'>0525934189</isbn> </book> </books> Output (books -

(book Atype hardback -

(title -Atlas Shrugged )title -

(author -Ayn Rand )author -

(isbn Aid 1 -0525934189 )isbn -

)book -

)books PYX is a line oriented format for XML files which can be helpful (and very efficient) when used in combination with regular line oriented UNIX command such as sed, grep, awk. 'depyx' option is used for conversion back from PYX into XML. EXAMPLE (Delete all attributes). This should work really fast for very large XML documents. xml pyx input.xml | grep -v "^A" | xml depyx Output <books> <book> <title>Atlas Shrugged</title> <author>Ayn Rand</author> <isbn>0525934189</isbn> </book> </books> Here is an article which describes how PYX format can be used to grep XML. http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-matters17.html

8. Escape/Unescape special XML characters Here is synopsis for 'xml esc' command: xml esc --help XMLStarlet Toolkit: Escape special XML characters Usage: xml esc [<options>] [<string>] where <options> are --help - print usage (TODO: more to be added in future) if <string> is missing stdin is used instead. XMLStarlet is a command line toolkit to query/edit/check/transform XML documents (for more information see http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/) EXAMPLE # Escape special XML characters cat xml/structure.xml | xml esc Input <a1> <a11> <a111> <a1111/> </a111> <a112> <a1121/> </a112> </a11> <a12/> <a13> <a131/> </a13> </a1> Output <a1> <a11> <a111> <a1111/> </a111> <a112> <a1121/> </a112> </a11> <a12/> <a13> <a131/> </a13> </a1>