I have an xml-like textfile which I would like to parse into an array. The input file looks like this
<AA>
<BB>content 1</BB>
</AA>
<AA>
<BB>content 2</BB>
</AA>
I want the output to be like (meaning one whole AA-block per array element):
ARRAY[0]=<AA><BB>content 1</BB></AA>
ARRAY[1]=<AA><BB>content 2</BB></AA>
I tried
ARRAY=(`cat input.txt | grep -A 3 \<AA\>`)
but this only returns me one line per array element. Does anyone have an idea?
XML and shell scripts don't mix very well. If you can, consider using a different file format or a different scripting language.
(
IFS=$'\n'
ARRAY=($(grep -A 3 '<AA>' test.xml | awk '{printf "%s",$0} $0~"</AA>" {print}'))
for MATCH in "${ARRAY[@]}"; do
echo "$MATCH"
done
)
Explanation:
\n controls how array elements are split apart. We don't want them split on spaces or tabs, just new lines.ARRAY=($(COMMAND)) captures COMMAND's output and takes each line as an array element (since we set IFS to \n).{printf "%s",$0} prints each line without the trailing newline.$0~"</AA>" {print} prints a newline whenever we see a closing tag </AA>.$IFS change. We don't want that change to be permanent; better to limit it to a sub-shell.
sed '/^<AA>$/,/^<[/]AA>$/{H;/<[/]AA>/{s:.*::g;x;s:\n::g;s:[ ]*<B:<B:g;b};d}' FILE
If your XML was well-formed, the following example demonstrates how it could be properly parsed using xpath:
#!/bin/bash
XML="
<doc>
<AA>
<BB>content 1</BB>
</AA>
<AA>
<BB>content 2</BB>
</AA>
</doc>
"
CONTENT1=`echo $XML | xmllint --xpath "string((/doc/AA/BB)[1])" -`
CONTENT2=`echo $XML | xmllint --xpath "string((/doc/AA/BB)[2])" -`
echo $CONTENT1
echo $CONTENT2
Assuming <AA> and </AA> are fixed names, here's a pure bash solution
#!/bin/bash
declare -a ARRAY
while read -r line; do
[ "$line" =~ ^\<BB\>$ ] && ARRAY+=("<AA>$line</AA>")
done < file.xml
