Changing multiple lines of XML file using Perl one-liner

Question

I am trying to change XML files using a Perl one-liner. The XML file is set up as

<NameBool name="Hardware Enabled">
    <BoolConfig>
       <value>false

I need to change the file to true. I have written a one-liner that seems to execute, but it never actually changes the file. What am I doing wrong?

Code

perl -p0777i -e 's/<NamedBool name=\"HardwareEnabled\">\n<BoolConfig>\n<value>false/<NamedBool name=\"HardwareEnabled\">\n<BoolConfig>\n<value>true/m' filename*

Don't you need to look for the spaces between the XML tags in your regex? — imran
– imran, Commented May 2, 2014 at 15:06

mirod · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-02 16:51:07Z

2

Why do you need a one-liner? Is it really so complicated to write a proper (small) script that would be easier to debug and maintain?

Anyway, provided you lines are long enough ;--)

perl -MXML::Twig -e'XML::Twig->new( twig_handlers => { q{NameBool[@name="Hardware Enabled"]/BoolConfig/value} => sub { $_->set_text( "false")->flush; } }, keep_spaces => 1)->parsefile_inplace( "to_change.xml")'

edited May 2, 2014 at 16:51

answered May 2, 2014 at 15:58

mirod

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2 Comments

user3596586 Over a year ago

I am needing it to be one line because I am actually using it as a call in a python script.

mirod Over a year ago

why don't you use a Python library to process the XML then?

simbabque · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-02 15:30:34Z

0

As was said in the comments above, you are not taking into account that there is indentation in your files. If there is not much else in there, how about this very simple regex:

s/\bfalse\b/true/

If however there are other occurrences of false, you will have to stick to your regex, but add whitespace. You could keep indentation and such, by doing it like this:

s/(<NameBool name="Hardware Enabled">\s+<BoolConfig>\s+<value>)false/${1}true/m

Note that there were two differences between your example data and your regex:

example: NameBool, regex: NamedBool
example: "Hardware Enabled", regex: "HardwareEnabled"

Take a look at http://regex101.com/r/wZ8bN5.

answered May 2, 2014 at 15:30

simbabque

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