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)