XML formatting Indentation Tags Matching - Linux

Question

I have an XML file whose format is quite compressed and all tags are stick together like

<PersonalData><IndividualDetails><Title>Mr</Title><Gender>Male</Gender><FirstName>Hae</FirstName><Surname>JONES</Surname><Occupation>Banker</Occupation><DateofBirth>4/6/76</DateofBirth><LastKnownAddress></LastKnownAddress><LastKnownPostCode>00145</LastKnownPostCode><OtherNames></OtherNames></IndividualDetails><OccupationDetails><Company>SD Bank</Company><CompanyAddress>Sunset Boulevard NY</CompanyAddress><ContactNo>335698457</ContactNo></OccupationDetails></PersonalData>

Is there any command in shell that can properly format the tags. If not indentation only adding the tags to their own lines can also solve my problem.

Statvolt

Answer 1

xmllint --format <your-xml-file>

example

$ cat test.xml
<a><b>c</b></a>
$ xmllint --format test.xml
<a>
  <b>c</b>
</a>
$ xmllint --format test.xml > test.formatted.xml
$ cat test.formatted.xml
<a>
  <b>c</b>
</a>
$

Illusive

This is not working on the Actual file. The file size of my XML is approx 583 MB. The Format option works on a small size file but when i apply this on actual file the Bash Kills the operation. Any idea for formatting BIG files, in chunks or so... – Statvolt

583 MB? Maybe you should implement your own SAX handler for indentation. – Illusive

And how can i do that. Just guide me in this – Statvolt

One thing to bear in mind with the xmllint approach is that it won't preserver the exact original text. eg. <a></a> will be transformed into <a/>. Technically this is correct, but it may catch you out if you aren't expecting it. – Marillin

Did you implement a solution for handling big files? – Bautzen

At that size you might need to add the --stream option. – Suck

Answer 2

tidy -xml -i -q

-xml - specify the input is well formed XML

-q - suppress nonessential output

-i - indent element content

tidy can work with files and stdin/stdout

echo '<a><b>c</b></a>' | tidy -xml -i -q

will produce

    <a>
      <b>c</b>
    </a>

Attalie