Shell Script to extract the value from XML file

Question

Can any please help me to write the shell script to find the value from the below xml:-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<log>
<logentry revision="36">
    <author>XYZ</author>
    <date>2014-07-15T14:47:18.328479Z</date>
    <paths>
        <path action="A" localPath="ABC" kind="unknown">/branches/ABC</path>
        <path action="A" localPath="ABC" kind="unknown">/branches/ABC</path>
        <path action="M" localPath="DEF" kind="unknown">/branches/CDF</path>
        <path action="M" localPath="DEF" kind="unknown">FRG</path>
    </paths>
    <msg>added</msg>
</logentry>
</log>

I want to extract the value of the localPath i.e "ABC" and "DEF" as output and write in one file.

BTW, do you really have two adds, and then two different modifications, of the exact same file? I wonder if the perceived need for a sort -u step is an artifact of your anonymization, rather than something that could ever happen with the genuine data. — Charles Duffy
– Charles Duffy, Commented Jul 15, 2016 at 16:30

choroba · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-15 16:11:58Z

2

Use an XML-aware tool. For example:

$ xmllint --xpath '/log/logentry/paths/path/@localPath' file.xml

Output:

 localPath="ABC" localPath="ABC" localPath="DEF" localPath="DEF"

which you can further process

$ xmllint --xpath '/log/logentry/paths/path/@localPath' file.xml \
  | sed 's/"/\n/g;' \
  | grep -v '^ ' \
  | sort -u

to get

ABC
DEF

or using xsh

open file.xml ;
$h := hash @localPath /log/logentry/paths/path ;
for { keys %$h } { echo (.) ; }

Output:

ABC
DEF

edited Jul 15, 2016 at 16:11

answered Jul 15, 2016 at 16:06

choroba

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4 Comments

Charles Duffy Over a year ago

Is the output format for xmllint --xpath documented with strong enough guarantees to make the following string manipulation forwards-compatible?

choroba Over a year ago

@CharlesDuffy: I don't know, that's why I included the output here, too.

user6376225 Over a year ago

@choroba:Thanks for your reply. I tried to run the command xmllint --xpath '/log/logentry/paths/path/@localPath' file.xml ,but it seems --xpath is not available. It is giving me error unknown option --xpath. Can you please tell me to fix this or do I need to use any other option.?

choroba Over a year ago

@user6376225: You can try upgrading xmllint.

Charles Duffy · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-15 16:10:12Z

1

...or, with XMLStarlet:

xmlstarlet sel -t -v /log/logentry/paths/path/@localPath -n

...emitting:

ABC
ABC
DEF
DEF

answered Jul 15, 2016 at 16:10

Charles Duffy

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