5

Can you help me to list browsers from this file http://techpatterns.com/downloads/firefox/useragentswitcher.xml into txt file, separated by %tab% delimiter?

3 or 4 columns should be there:

1) folder description from example data: <folder description="Browsers - Windows">

2) browser type from example data: <folder description="Legacy Browsers">

3) user agent from example data:<useragent description="Avant Browser 1.2" useragent="Avant Browser/1.2.789rel1 (http://www.avantbrowser.com)" app

Here I see 1st problem, because some browsers arn't in folder <folder description="Legacy Browsers">" but under <separator/>

So the 1st column should define system, second is type and third is browser.

The next problem is that the Devises folder contains one more folder.

@echo off 
Setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
SET file=useragentswitcher.xml
SET delim="

FOR /F "tokens=* skip=1" %%F IN (!file!) DO (
  REM echo %%F
  call :parse "%%F" > temp.txt
  FOR /F "tokens=1,2,3,4,5,6,7 skip=1 delims=" %%A IN (temp.txt) DO (
    IF "%%A"=="folder" (
      SET /A level=!level!+1
      echo Level:!level!
      ) ELSE IF "%%A"=="/folder" (
          SET /A level=!level!-1
          echo Level:!level!
        )

   echo A:%%A
  )
  pause
)

exit /b

:parse
Setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
  SET A=%*
  REM REMOVE double paranthesis and <> 
  SET A=!A:~2,-2!
  REM replace double qoutes
  SET A=!A:"=µ!
  FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=µ=" %%A IN ("!A!") DO (
    SET first=%%A
    SET second=%%B
    echo !first!
    FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims= " %%A IN ("!first!") DO (
      echo %%A
      echo %%B
    )
    echo !second!
  )
endlocal
exit /b

This parses one tag of the line and I am going to work with it now.

4
  • Where your code fails? I can't see any programming question? Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 12:48
  • I will paste code, if I will have some. Now I am stuck here: FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=^"" %%B IN ("%%A") DO How should I use double quotes as delimiter? Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 13:28
  • Code updated, this looks better to start to work with. Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 15:30
  • Is it possible to add linefeed as delim? What I try to do is to parse file lines into variables %%A %%B %%C %%D %%E %%F Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 16:03

3 Answers 3

7

It seems you ought to be able to find a much better tool than batch to parse XML...

But I believe the code below is what you are looking for.

Because the number of folders varies, I swapped the order of the columns in the output. I put the browser description first, followed by the folders, one per column. This allows the definition of each column to be fixed.

I used the info in jeb's answer to include " as a FOR delimiter.

EDIT - I simplified the code

Note - This first attempt was written to work with a copy of the XML that was retrieved using Internet Explorer. I've since discovered that IE altered the format of the file. This code is highly dependent on the exact format of the file, so it will not work on the original XML. It also serves as an example as to why batch is a poor choice for parsing XML

@echo off
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion

::Define the files to use - change as needed
set input="test.xml"
set output="result.txt"

::The assignment below should have exactly one TAB character between = and "
set "TAB=   "

set cnt=0
set "folder0="
>%output% (
  for /f usebackq^ tokens^=1^,2^ delims^=^=^" %%A in (%input%) do (
    for %%N in (!cnt!) do (
      if "%%A"=="- <folder description" (
        set /a cnt+=1
        for %%M in (!cnt!) do set "folder%%M=!folder%%N!%TAB%%%B"
      )
      if "%%A"=="  </folder>" (
        set /a cnt-=1
      )
      if "%%A"=="  <useragent description" (
        echo %%B!folder%%N!
      )
    )
  )
)

The code will fail if ! appears in any of the descriptions because delayed expansion will corrupt expansion of any FOR variable that contains !. I checked, and your file does not contain ! in any description.

The code could be modified to handle ! in the description, but it would get more complicated. It requires toggling of delayed expansion on and off, and preservation of variable values across the ENDLOCAL barrier.

The above code is highly dependent on the format of the XML. It will fail if the non-standard dashes are removed, or if the white space arrangement changes.

The following variation is a bit more robust, but it still requires that each line contains exactly one XML tag.

@echo off
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion

::Define the files to use - change as needed
set input="test.xml"
set output="result.txt"

::The assignment below should have exactly one TAB character between = and "
set "TAB=   "

set cnt=0
set "folder0="
>%output% (
  for /f usebackq^ tokens^=1^,2^ delims^=^=^" %%A in (%input%) do (
    for %%N in (!cnt!) do (
      set "test=%%A"
      if "!test:<folder description=!" neq "!test!" (
        set /a cnt+=1
        for %%M in (!cnt!) do set "folder%%M=!folder%%N!%TAB%%%B"
      )
      if "!test:</folder>=!" neq "!test!" (
        set /a cnt-=1
      )
      if "!test:<useragent description=!" neq "!test!" (
        echo %%B!folder%%N!
      )
    )
  )
)

EDIT - One last version

Here is a version that can handle ! in the data. I've added an additional column to the output. The first column is still the browser description. The 2nd column is the useragent string. The remaining columns are the folders. The solution uses the delayed expansion toggling technique. It also uses an additional FOR /F to preserve a variable value across the ENDLOCAL barrier.

@echo off
setlocal disableDelayedExpansion

::Define the files to use - change as needed
set input="test.xml"
set output="result.txt"

::The assignment below should have exactly one TAB character between = and "
set "TAB=   "

set cnt=0
set folder0=""
>%output% (
  for /f usebackq^ tokens^=1-4^ delims^=^=^" %%A in (%input%) do (
    set "test=%%A"
    set "desc=%%B"
    set "agent=%%D"
    setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
    for %%N in (!cnt!) do (
      if "!test:<folder description=!" neq "!test!" (
        set /a cnt+=1
        for %%M in (!cnt!) do for /f "delims=" %%E in ("!folder%%N!") do (
          endlocal
          set "folder%%M=%%~E%TAB%%%B"
          set "cnt=%%M"
        )
      ) else if "!test:</folder>=!" neq "!test!" (
        endlocal
        set /a cnt-=1
      ) else if "!test:<useragent description=!" neq "!test!" (
        echo !desc!%TAB%!agent!!folder%%N!
        endlocal
      ) else endlocal
    )
  )
)
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12 Comments

Thanks for your code. It is not possible to use string substitution with delayed variables when looking for "!"? Yahoo! contains such character. But probably we could replace the exclamation marks with different character before the parsing starts. Also I tried some code, as you can see I updated the code in question. I have problem there because I temp.txt in which I saved the parsed values, has every value in separated line. Is it possible to read every line from the temp.txt to variables %%A %%B %%C etc.?
What is it? set "folder0=" >%output% ( for ? I see it first time so don't understand what does it do.
@user1141649 - With the data you provided, you only need to worry about ! if you care about the useragent string. I assumed you only needed the browser description. It is not possible to use FOR to read multiple lines into %%A %%B etc. as you would like. But you should not require the temporary file in the first place.
@user1141649 - I need to guarantee the initial value of folder0 in order for the algorithm to work. The parentheses with redirection around the big FOR statement are used to capture the results in a file. I assumed that is what you would ultimately want. Doing the redirection once outside the loop is much more efficient than using append mode within the loop.
@user1141649 - I've added a final solution that preserves ! values.
|
2

Check the xpath.bat - script that can get values from xml by given xpath expression:

call xpath.bat "useragentswitcher.xml" "//folder/@description"

Comments

1

Answer to your comment How should I use double quotes as delimiter?

Simply use the form

FOR /F tokens^=1^,2^ delims^=^" %%B IN ("%%A") DO

How this works?
Normally you can't use a quote character as a delim character.
This is the only known workaround, the important thing is that the normal quotes arround the FOR/F options are missing.
But it's neccessary that the options are parsed as only one token, therefore you need to escape all standard batch-parser delimiters (space tab =,;).
The quote isn't a batch delimiter, but it need to be escaped too, to avoid that the rest of the line is quoted, then the parser would fail.
But you could change the ^" with "" as the second quote will be ignored.

FOR /F tokens^=1^,2^ delims^="" %%B IN ("%%A") DO ...

1 Comment

Can you explain how does it work? It looks like chaos of characters to me. Why the tokens are enclosed by ^^ and the delims arn't enclosed? Really confused.

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