grep and replace multiple strings between multiple files

Question

I have multiple XML files with strings that are all set to

<msg type="Status"

Some of these strings should be type "Warning" and I have a separate text file with the warning strings.

I can do a

grep -f strings.txt *.xml

this allows me to see which warning strings are incorrectly listed as status strings. What I would like to do is

grep -f strings.txt *.xml | sed 's/status/warning/'

This gives me my desired output, but it is only being displayed (not saved). There are multiple xml files so i can't just save the output to one file. I need sed to replace the string in the original .xml file it originated from. Thanks for your help.

Any reason you're not using [xmllint](http://xmlsoft.org/xmllint.html) to parse the file? — brandonscript, Dec 09 '13 at 18:44
It'll save you a lot of grief - you can pass multiple xml files and use the `--pattern` option to use xpath to search it. — brandonscript, Dec 09 '13 at 18:47

0x90 · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-09T19:59:58.970

2

you were close instead of grep -f strings.txt *.xml | sed 's/status/warning/'

do

grep -l strings.txt *.xml | xargs sed -i 's/status/warning/g'

you forgot to use xargs, read here for more info about xargs.

edited Dec 09 '13 at 19:59

answered Dec 09 '13 at 19:19

0x90

39,472
36
165
245

only using -rl doesn't produce anything, sorry for all the questions – lacosteaef Dec 09 '13 at 19:53
run this command: `grep -l strings.txt *.xml | xargs sed -i 's/status/warning/g'` I fixed it. – 0x90 Dec 09 '13 at 19:59
If it do `grep -f strings.txt *.xml` i see all my shared lines. If i `grep -l strings.txt *.xml` I don't get any output. Thanks for all the troubleshooting help. – lacosteaef Dec 09 '13 at 20:04
Specifically I see something like this `vnlrmsg.xml:` – lacosteaef Dec 09 '13 at 20:05
so do `grep -fl strings.txt *.xml |xargs sed -i 's/status/warning/g';` otherwise I don't know what you are using. – 0x90 Dec 09 '13 at 20:06
1

In the end it worked. I'm using cygwin on this box and I had to use `dos2unix` on my files for everything to work correctly. Thanks. – lacosteaef Dec 12 '13 at 18:55

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 09 '13 at 18:48

0

Recommend trying xmllint. Using the --pattern option, you can specify xpath search queries to search for exactly what you need it to find without complicated regular expressions.

answered Dec 09 '13 at 18:48

brandonscript

68,675
32
163
220

Thanks, i'm looking up its usage now. Hopefully it does the trick. – lacosteaef Dec 09 '13 at 18:55

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 09 '13 at 19:02

0

There is an Perl script xml_grep using xpath as query language: http://search.cpan.org/dist/XML-Twig/tools/xml_grep/xml_grep

xml_grep '//msg[@type="Warning"]' *.xml

answered Dec 09 '13 at 19:02

alex

1,304
12
15

grep and replace multiple strings between multiple files

3 Answers3