Retrieve Element Tag Value XML Using Bash

Question

Is there a way that I can retrieve the value of an element (or the tag) in XML through a bash script?

For example, if I had the below XML, I'd like to retrieve the element , so that when I run the command, it simply returns "tag1" rather than any content within any of the other tags. I know I can use xmllint if I wanted to retrieve the valueTag3 content for example, but that is not what I'd like to do.

<tag1>
    <tag2>
        <tag3>valueTag3</tag3>
    </tag2>
</tag1>

If the above is possible (whether using xmllint or not), is there a way that I can specify that I'd like to return a child tag of its parent tag? For example, what would be the command if I wanted to return "tag2" (which is a child of tag1 above)?

tag2 doesn't follow tag1, tag2 is tag1's child.

choroba
– choroba

2019-07-31 08:59:24 +00:00
Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 8:59 — choroba
– choroba, Commented Jul 31, 2019 at 8:59

Léa Gris · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-31 09:08:16Z

1

See XPath syntax:

xmllint -xpath 'name(/tag1/tag2/*)' xmlsource

edited Jul 31, 2019 at 9:08

answered Jul 31, 2019 at 8:56

Léa Gris

20.2k4 gold badges39 silver badges52 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

Adam Over a year ago

I've run the above command and it returns "valueTag3". As mentioned above, I'd like to return the tag itself (tag3 for example) rather than the value within it.

Léa Gris Over a year ago

Oh, then you need to use name() function of XPath like this: xmllint -xpath 'name(/tag1/tag2/*) (Fixed above)

Adam Over a year ago

Perfect, thank you! I also found a potential solution using xmlStarlet which returns the structure of the xml file: xml sel -T -t -m '//*' \ -m 'ancestor-or-self::*' -v 'name()' -i 'not(position()=last())' -o . -b -b -n \ source.xml which could be handy.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Retrieve Element Tag Value XML Using Bash

1 Answer 1

3 Comments

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

3 Comments

Related