Parsing xml to and replacing specific tags shell script

Question

For the below xml ,I need to replace for CLASSA to failed

Answer 1

Update value with xmllint in file.xml:

xmllint --shell file.xml << EOF
cd /studentFile/student[studentName='CLASSA']/studentActions/studentAction[studentType='Juniour']/studentStatus
set failed
save
EOF

or without here document:

echo -e "cd /studentFile/student[studentName='CLASSA']/studentActions/studentAction[studentType='Juniour']/studentStatus\nset failed\nsave" | xmllint --shell file.xml

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Update: With bash and XML in a variable:

xml=$(xmllint --shell <(echo "$xml") << EOF
cd /studentFile/student[studentName='CLASSA']/studentActions/studentAction[studentType='Juniour']/studentStatus
set failed
save -
EOF
)

or without here document:

xml=$(echo -e "cd /studentFile/student[studentName='CLASSA']/studentActions/studentAction[studentType='Juniour']/studentStatus\nset failed\nsave -" | xmllint --shell <(echo "$xml"))

Answer 2

xlmlint, as the name implies, is for parsing and validating XML, not editing it. If you can install xmlstarlet on your cluster, you can do the following:

xmlstarlet ed --update "/studentFile/student[studentName='CLASSA']/studentActions/studentAction[studentType='Juniour']/studentStatus" --value "Failed" *file*

Answer 3

In case if xmlstarlet (a command line toolkit to query/edit/check/transform XML documents) is accessible:

xmlstarlet ed -u "//studentAction/studentStatus[preceding-sibling::studentType[1][text() = 'Juniour'] \
           and ancestor::student/studentName[text() = 'CLASSA']]" -v failed students.xml

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The above will output the initial XML document with needed replacement

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The command details:

ed -u - edit/update mode

//studentAction/studentStatus - xpath expression to select studentStatus element which has:

• preceding-sibling::studentType[1][text() = 'Juniour'] - preceding sibling element studentType with value Juniour
• ancestor::student/studentName[text() = 'CLASSA'] - nearest element studentName with value CLASSA