10

I want to edit the config file of a program that is an XML:

<software>
   <settings>
       ...
       <setting name="local directory" type="string">/home/username/</setting>
       ...
   </settings>
</software>

What is the easiest way to do this from a bash script?

Thanks

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2
  • 3
    What edit do you want to make? Commented Oct 12, 2009 at 11:58
  • the setting called local directory, its value Commented Oct 12, 2009 at 16:21

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
20

Using xmlstarlet:

xmlstarlet val -e file.xml
xmlstarlet ed -u "//settings/setting/@name" -v 'local directory2' file.xml
xmlstarlet ed -u "//settings[1]/setting/@name" -v 'local directory2' file.xml

# edit file inplace
xmlstarlet ed -L -u "//settings/setting/@name" -v 'local directory2' file.xml
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2 Comments

I don't have -L option to edit in place, what edition of xmlstartlet and unix are you using?
Ah, brilliant - the -L option was just what I was looking for.
13

Depending on what you want to do, you may want to use some XML-specific tooling (to handle character encodings, to maintain XML well-formedness etc.). You can use the normal line-oriented tools, but unless you're careful (or doing something trivial) you can easily create non-compliant XML.

I use the XMLStarlet command line set. It's a set of command line utilities for specifically parsing/manipulating XML.

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3 Comments

+1 to above comment for use of the word dandy. +1 to post for great reference.
But what about something that's installed by default?
@TomášZato, ...then you end up using Python (which has several XML modules built in).
-4

Most people would probably use sed to do line editing from a bash script. If you actually care about parsing the XML, then use something like Perl which has a ready XML parser.

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1 Comment

This could be a way of solving the problem. But in that case please try to add some sample codes for that. Don't give vague sentences.
-4

An ugly/unsafe but sometimes the easiest is to call sed/perl/awk from bash

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