Unescape xml file using xmlstarlet

Question

I have two xml files A and B. I want to insert certain element nodes in A to B. It went fine but the imported elements were not "unescape" in B:

XML file A:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<article>
  <publication>
     <authors>
      <author>
        <givenname locale="en_US">Admin</givenname>
        <givenname locale="nb_NO">Admin</givenname>
        <familyname locale="en_US">Septentrio</familyname>
        <email>[email protected]</email>
      </author>
      <author include_in_browse="true" user_group_ref="Forfatter" seq="0" id="13075">
        <givenname locale="nb_NO">Peter</givenname>
        <familyname locale="nb_NO">Nilsen</familyname>
        <affiliation locale="nb_NO">NTL University</affiliation>
        <country>NO</country>
        <email>[email protected]</email>
      </author>
    </authors>
  </publication>
</article>

XML file B:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD JATS (Z39.96) Journal Archiving and Interchange DTD v1.2 20190208//EN" "JATS-archivearticle1.dtd">
<article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" dtd-version="1.2" article-type="other">
  <front>
  </front>
</article>

When I run:

xmlstarlet ed -L -s "//article/front" -t elem -n "newchild"  -v "$(xmlstarlet  sel  --omit-decl  -t -c "/article/publication/authors/author" a.xml)" b.xml

it gives me the following in B file:

<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD JATS (Z39.96) Journal Archiving and Interchange DTD v1.2 20190208//EN" "JATS-archivearticle1.dtd">
<article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" dtd-version="1.2" article-type="other">
  <front>
  <newchild>&lt;author&gt;
        &lt;givenname locale="en_US"&gt;Admin&lt;/givenname&gt;
        &lt;givenname locale="nb_NO"&gt;Admin&lt;/givenname&gt;
        &lt;familyname locale="en_US"&gt;Septentrio&lt;/familyname&gt;
        &lt;email&gt;[email protected]&lt;/email&gt;
        &lt;/author&gt;&lt;author include_in_browse="true" user_group_ref="Forfatter" seq="0" id="13075"&gt;
        &lt;givenname locale="nb_NO"&gt;Peter&lt;/givenname&gt;
        &lt;familyname locale="nb_NO"&gt;Nilsen&lt;/familyname&gt;
        &lt;affiliation locale="nb_NO"&gt;NTL University&lt;/affiliation&gt;
        &lt;country&gt;NO&lt;/country&gt;
        &lt;email&gt;[email protected]&lt;/email&gt;
      &lt;/author&gt;</newchild></front>
</article>

How can I do unesc on the result.

Thanks.

Ofuuzo

Gilles Quénot · Accepted Answer · 2023-03-27 02:30:35Z

2

Like this:

$ xmlstarlet unesc < file.xml
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD JATS (Z39.96) Journal Archiving and Interchange DTD v1.2 20190208//EN" "JATS-archivearticle1.dtd">
<article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" dtd-version="1.2" article-type="other">
  <front>
  <newchild><author>
        <givenname locale="en_US">Admin</givenname>
        <givenname locale="nb_NO">Admin</givenname>
        <familyname locale="en_US">Septentrio</familyname>
        <email>[email protected]</email>
        </author><author include_in_browse="true" user_group_ref="Forfatter" seq="0" id="13075">
        <givenname locale="nb_NO">Peter</givenname>
        <familyname locale="nb_NO">Nilsen</familyname>
        <affiliation locale="nb_NO">NTL University</affiliation>
        <country>NO</country>
        <email>[email protected]</email>
      </author></newchild></front>
</article>

to edit in place:

$ xmlstarlet unesc < file.xml | sponge file

edited Mar 27, 2023 at 2:30

answered Mar 26, 2023 at 19:10

Gilles Quénot

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3 Comments

Ofuuzo Over a year ago

Is there any other way to do unesc without piping the file?

Cyrus Over a year ago

@Ofuuzo: xmlstarlet unesc <file

Cyrus Over a year ago

@GillesQuénot: xmlstarlet unesc is not able to read a file by itself, it needs help from a shell. Because of this I used <file.

LMC · Accepted Answer · 2023-03-26 20:54:51Z

With xmllint, create newchild on file B and set its content to //author elements from file A

(printf '%s\n' "cd //article/front" "set <newchild></newchild>" "cd newchild" "set $(xmllint --xpath "//author" a.xml | sed -ze 's/\n/\&#xA;/g')" "save" "bye") | xmllint --shell b.xml

Output of one-liner

/ > cd //article/front
front > set <newchild></newchild>
front > cd newchild
newchild > set <author>&#xA;        <givenname locale="en_US">Admin</givenname>&#xA;        <givenname locale="nb_NO">Admin</givenname>&#xA;        <familyname locale="en_US">Septentrio</familyname>&#xA;        <email>[email protected]</email>&#xA;      </author>&#xA;<author include_in_browse="true" user_group_ref="Forfatter" seq="0" id="13075">&#xA;        <givenname locale="nb_NO">Peter</givenname>&#xA;        <familyname locale="nb_NO">Nilsen</familyname>&#xA;        <affiliation locale="nb_NO">NTL University</affiliation>&#xA;        <country>NO</country>&#xA;        <email>[email protected]</email>&#xA;      </author>&#xA;
newchild > save
newchild > bye

sed -ze 's/\n/\
/g' replaces plain new lines by their html entity to avoid sending them to piped xmllint --shell

Conal Tuohy · Accepted Answer · 2023-03-27 22:52:04Z

0

Another approach would be to use xmlstarlet's XSLT processor to select the data from the other file and insert it, as a single operation, e.g. here's a simple XSLT stylesheet which uses the XPath expressions from your example, which I've called insert.xsl:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <!-- the name of the document containing the author -->
    <xsl:param name="author-doc"/>
    <!-- copy the front element and insert authors at the end -->
    <xsl:template match="article/front">
        <xsl:copy>
            <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/>
            <xsl:apply-templates/>
            <newchild>
                <xsl:copy-of select="document($author-doc)/article/publication/authors/author"/>
            </newchild>
        </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>
    <!-- copy the rest of the document unchanged -->
    <xsl:template match="*">
        <xsl:copy>
            <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/>
            <xsl:apply-templates/>
        </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

To invoke it:

xmlstarlet tr insert.xsl -s author-doc=a.xml b.xml

edited Mar 27, 2023 at 22:52

answered Mar 27, 2023 at 6:45

Conal Tuohy

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1 Comment

Conal Tuohy Over a year ago

NB The XSLT above, while textually slightly longer than the other answers here, is arguably more readable and intelligible. It also doesn't tie you to xmlstarlet; you can execute the XSLT with xmlstarlet or you can use any other XSLT processor you like.

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