NAME

       xgrep ‐ search content of an XML file

SYNOPSIS

       xgrep  [-h]  [-v]  [-t]  [-p]  [-n  nsdef  [-n  nsdef]...]  [-x  xpath]  [-s  string  [-s string]...] [-c
       catalog-file] [infile [infile]...]

DESCRIPTION

       xgrep provides facilities for searching content in XML files. The search is specified either as an  XPath
       via  the  -x  flag,  or a custom syntax including extended regular expressions via the -s flag.  Multiple
       input files may be specified; if none are provided, input is read from stdin.

OPTIONS

       xgrep accepts the following options:

       -x xpath
               An XPath specification of the elements of interest.

       -s string
               A  custom  string  format  specifying  the  elements  of   interest.   The   string   format   is
               base-element:element/regex/,element/regex/,...   where  base-element  is the name of the elements
               within which a match should be attempted, the match succeeding if, for each element/regex/  pair,
               the  content  of  an  element  of that name is matched by the corresponding regex. If multiple -s
               flags are specified, a match by any one of them is returned.

       -n nsdef
               Define a namespace prefix using the form prefix=namespace.

       -c catalog-file
               Use the specified catalog file instead of the default.

       -p      Regular expressions use Perl syntax as  implemented  in  the  PCRE  library.  (This  option  only
               available when xgrep has been linked with the PCRE library.)

       -t      Text  output  mode for generating output formatted for subsequent processing by standard command-
               line text tools (grep, sed, etc.). Linefeeds are converted to spaces within  each  matching  node
               set, and each node set is seperated by a newline.

       -h      Display usage information

       -v      Display version information

EXAMPLES

       Consider  an  XML format, for personnel information, in which each person element has descendant elements
       called name and hiredate. To find all person elements with "Smith" in the content of the name element and
       "2000" in the content of the hiredate element, do:

           xgrep -s 'person:name/Smith/,hiredate/2000/' a.xml b.xml

       Using  XPath to locate elements with a namespace requires use of the -n flag to define a namespace prefix
       for use in the XPath. For example to search for "name" elements within a GPX document, do:

           xgrep -n gpx="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1" \
                 -x '//gpx:name' data.gpx

SEE ALSO

       regex(7), pcre(3), xmllint(1)

AUTHOR

       Brendt Wohlberg <software@wohlberg.net>

                                                  9 August 2013                                         xgrep(1)