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https://github.com/fralau/xmlshow

Settle for LESS: a fast and super-simple XML viewer for command-line
https://github.com/fralau/xmlshow

bash-script large-files syntax-highlighting unix-command viewer xml

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Settle for LESS: a fast and super-simple XML viewer for command-line

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README 

        
# xmlshow: A super-simple and powerful viewer for large XML files, for the command-line



## Introduction



Ever found yourself with an XML file just too large for your editor or your browser, and did you (like me) spent your time trying to find a simple solution on the Web? This one may be for you.



And if it isn't, you may have found enough material to create your own, just with standard utilities.



### Features

xmlshow is a super-simple XML viewer for the Unix command line, which should provide most everything you could wish,

since uses the features of [less](https://ss64.com/bash/less.html).



  - It will display any **large** XML file in a breeze.

  - It has syntax highlighting

  - If it is a zip file, it will unzip it in the process (zipping is *both* indispensable and effective, 

    since XML is wonderfully redundant).

  - It has line numbering

  - You can navigate forward and backward

  - You can use sed search patterns.



### Limitations

There are two things, however, that it won't do:

  - Modifying the file

  - Prepare or serve coffee



### Usage

Just type:



    $ xmlshow 

    




It will also read from stdin if no argument is provided. Hence if some utility outputs some well-form XML on stdout, you can pipe it into xml show:



    $ some-utility | xmlshow



## How it works

It combines:



  - unzip, to extract the file

  - file to check the mime type of the input file

  - [xmllint](http://xmlsoft.org/xmllint.html), for beautifying the XML.

  - highlight to highlight the syntax

  - [less](https://ss64.com/bash/less.html) to view the file and add the line numbers.

  

 The script does it for you, but this is the substance:

 

     xmllint --format  | highlight --syntax=xml --out-format=xterm-256 | less -R -N

     

 (the `-R` parameter in `less` is for raw (i.e. to preserve the escape codes for colors), and `-N` is for numbering)

    

That's all there is to it: it's just a typical shell hack with Unix pipes, sufficiently long to warrant a script file, and sufficiently useful to be put on github.



## How to install it



  1. Download the .sh file an install it some directory in your path (type `echo $PATH`to find out).

  2. Make it executable: `chmod +x xmlshow.sh`

  2. In that same directory, create a soft link: `ln -s xmlshow.sh xmlshow`

  3. If it fails, make sure that utilities mentioned above (typically xmllint and highlight) are installed on your system. If not use your favorite package manager

     - On Debian, `apt get install`

     - On MacOs, `brew install` is your friend (see [instructions to install brew](https://brew.sh/))



*Voilà*, you should be all set.

 

## Tips



### Navigating the file

The [less](https://ss64.com/bash/less.html) utility has actually quite a few tricks up its sleeves.



Beside the usual commands, remember that:



 - `z`jumps one window forward

 - `w`jumps one window backward

 - **`h` calls a help, with plenty of good features you may not have suspected (use q to quit)**

 - To search for a pattern just type `/pattern`



### Viewing more text

It is also worth remembering that it is often easy to display more text at once, either by getting a smaller font on your terminal pane (on MacOS: `CMD -`, `CMD 0` to get to normal), or by increasing the size of the window or pane!



### Consulting the XML content of a docx document

Since you can use xmlshow in a pipe, you can do something like this:



    unzip -p myfile.docx word/document.xml | xmlshow

    

It tells unzip to decompress the document.xml file and to send it to stdout, ready to be piped into xmlshow.