Bash script for updating part of XML element value

Question

I need a bash script for updating part of XML element value according to some other dynamic property.

For example, the XML file:

<?xml version="1.0"  encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
 <Configure class="org.eclipse.something">
   <Set name="foo">foo-val</Set>
   <Set name="bar">bar-val</Set>
   <Set name="my-elm">/dont/matter/THIS_ONE_NEED_TO_BE_UPDATED</Set>
 </Configure>

Tried to use xmlstarlet with regexing, but it's not providing the result I want. I'm working on OSX 10.12.

If the value to change is only present once in your file, a simple sed -i 's/oldvalue/newvalue/' file.xml is enough — Aserre
– Aserre, Commented Jan 2, 2017 at 13:33
Yes, I tried regexing the text and xmlstarlet, didn't succeed to replace just part of the value. — Johnny
– Johnny, Commented Jan 2, 2017 at 13:33

Inian · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-02 14:10:57Z

2

Using xmlstarlet with below xpath expression worked fine for me. The below expression does in-pace substitution (-L flag) of the XML file

xmlstarlet edit -L -u "/Configure/Set[@name='my-elm']" -v '/dont/matter/THIS_ONE_NEED_TO_BE_UPDATED' xml-file

Drop the -L flag to check if the replacement is occurring properly, and once successful add the same.

Checked on xmlstarlet (1.6.1) on OS X

Though it is strictly NOT advised to use sed for xml updates, this below logic will work for you,

sed "s/\(<Set name=\"my-elm\".*>\)[^<>]*\(<\/Set.*\)/\1\/dont\/matter\/THIS_ONE_NEED_TO_BE_UPDATED\2/" xml-file

add the -i.bak for in-place substitution of the file.

edited Jan 2, 2017 at 14:10

answered Jan 2, 2017 at 13:38

Inian

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2 Comments

Johnny Over a year ago

Thanks. It works :) Two questions please. 1) Is there a way to do it without xmlstarlet? There are machines that don't have it installed 2) Is there a nice regex trick to update just the THIS_ONE_NEED_TO_BE_UPDATED part?

Inian Over a year ago

@StasS: Refer my update which should solve your problem,

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