xmlstarlet

Command-line XML processing toolkit

TLDR

Select nodes using an XPath expression

$ xmlstarlet sel -t -v "[xpath]" [file.xml]

Format/pretty-print an XML file

$ xmlstarlet fo [file.xml]

Validate an XML file against a schema

$ xmlstarlet val -s [schema.xsd] [file.xml]

Edit an XML file (update a node value)

$ xmlstarlet ed -u "[xpath]" -v "[new_value]" [file.xml]

Transform XML using an XSLT stylesheet

$ xmlstarlet tr [stylesheet.xsl] [file.xml]

List element structure of an XML document

$ xmlstarlet el [file.xml]

Escape special characters for XML

$ echo "[text]" | xmlstarlet esc

Check well-formedness of an XML file

$ xmlstarlet val --well-formed [file.xml]

SYNOPSIS

xmlstarlet [globaloptions] command [commandoptions] [arguments]

XMLStarlet is a command-line XML toolkit that provides Unix-style utilities for processing XML files. It allows querying, transforming, validating, and editing XML documents using familiar shell command patterns, similar to how grep, sed, and awk work with plain text.The toolkit uses XPath for node selection and supports XSLT for transformations. It can validate against DTDs, XML Schema (XSD), and RelaxNG. Built on libxml2 and libxslt libraries, it provides robust XML processing capabilities.Each command has its own options; use xmlstarlet command --help for detailed help on specific commands.

PARAMETERS

sel (select)

Select or query XML nodes using XPath expressions.

ed (edit)

Edit XML documents by inserting, deleting, updating, or renaming nodes.

tr (transform)

Perform XSLT transformations on XML documents.

val (validate)

Validate XML documents against DTDs or XML Schemas.

fo (format)

Format XML documents for readability with proper indentation.

el (elements)

Display element structure of an XML document.

c14n (canonic)

Canonicalize XML documents (C14N).

ls (list)

List directory contents as XML.

esc (escape)

Escape special XML characters in text.

unesc (unescape)

Unescape XML entities to original characters.

pyx

Convert XML to PYX format.

p2x (depyx)

Convert PYX back to XML.

--version

Display version information.

--help

Display help message.

INSTALL

sudo apt install xmlstarlet

sudo dnf install xmlstarlet

sudo pacman -S xmlstarlet

sudo apk add xmlstarlet

sudo zypper install xmlstarlet

brew install xmlstarlet

nix profile install nixpkgs#xmlstarlet

CAVEATS

XMLStarlet requires well-formed XML input; malformed documents will cause errors. It primarily supports XPath 1.0 and XSLT 1.0, lacking features from newer specifications. Namespace handling can be complex and may require explicit prefix declarations.

HISTORY

XMLStarlet was created by Mikhail Grushinskiy and first released in 2002. It was developed to fill the need for command-line XML processing tools that could integrate with Unix shell workflows. The project is hosted on SourceForge and continues to be maintained as a standard utility for XML manipulation in scripting environments.