xmlq — Pipe-friendly CLI for XML

Quick start

bash

# What is this file?
xmlq stat data.xml

# Show structure
xmlq tree data.xml

# Peek at first record
xmlq first '//product' data.xml

# Query with XPath
xmlq select '//product[price > 100]' data.xml

Commands

`xmlq stat [file]`

Quick overview — size, root element, element count, namespaces, top-level children.

bash

xmlq stat data.xml
xmlq stat --json data.xml        # machine-readable output
cat data.xml | xmlq stat         # read from stdin

Flags: --json

`xmlq tags [file]`

List all unique element names with occurrence counts.

bash

xmlq tags data.xml
xmlq tags --sort name data.xml   # alphabetical
xmlq tags --depth 3 data.xml     # only top 3 levels

Flags: --sort name, --depth N, --json

`xmlq tree [file]`

Structural skeleton — unique element hierarchy with repetition counts.

bash

xmlq tree data.xml
xmlq tree --depth 2 data.xml
xmlq tree --no-attrs data.xml

Flags: --depth N, --no-attrs, --no-counts

`xmlq select <xpath> [file]`

Query nodes using XPath. The core workhorse.

bash

xmlq select '//product' data.xml
xmlq select '//product[price > 100]' --first 5 data.xml
xmlq select '//product' --count data.xml
xmlq select '//product/name' --text data.xml
xmlq select '//product' --attr sku data.xml
xmlq select '//product' --json data.xml
xmlq select '//product' --wrap data.xml       # wrap in <results>
xmlq select '//product' --compact data.xml

Flags: --first N, --count, --text, --attr NAME, --compact, --json, --wrap

`xmlq first [N] <xpath> [file]`

First N matching nodes (default: 1). Most used for exploration.

bash

xmlq first '//product' data.xml          # first 1
xmlq first 5 '//product' data.xml        # first 5

`xmlq count <xpath> [file]`

Count XPath matches.

bash

xmlq count '//product' data.xml
xmlq count '//product[price > 100]' data.xml

`xmlq text <xpath> [file]`

Extract text content, one value per line.

bash

xmlq text '//product/name' data.xml
xmlq text --first 10 '//product/name' data.xml
xmlq text --no-trim '//pre' data.xml

Flags: --first N, --trim (default: on), --no-trim

`xmlq attrs [xpath] [file]`

List attributes. Without XPath, discovers all attributes in the document.

bash

xmlq attrs data.xml                      # all attributes
xmlq attrs '//product' data.xml          # attributes of <product>
xmlq attrs --values '//product' data.xml

Flags: --values

`xmlq fmt [file]`

Pretty-print or reformat XML.

bash

xmlq fmt data.xml
xmlq fmt --indent 4 data.xml
xmlq fmt --compact data.xml              # minify
xmlq fmt --in-place data.xml             # overwrite file

Flags: --indent N, --compact, --in-place

`xmlq json [file]`

Convert XML to JSON.

bash

xmlq json data.xml
xmlq json --compact data.xml
xmlq json data.xml | jq '.catalog.product[0]'

Flags: --compact

`xmlq validate [file]`

Check if XML is well-formed. Exit 0 = valid, exit 1 = error.

bash

xmlq validate data.xml
xmlq validate *.xml

`xmlq ns [file]`

List namespaces declared in the document.

bash

xmlq ns data.xml

`xmlq schema [file]`

Infer a rough schema — elements, attributes, nesting, value types.

bash

xmlq schema data.xml
xmlq schema --json data.xml

Flags: --json

Global flags

Flag	Description
`--no-color`	Disable colored output
`--ns PREFIX=URI`	Register namespace for XPath (e.g., `--ns ns=http://example.com`)

Pipe composition

bash

# Find expensive products → JSON → jq
xmlq select '//product[price > 100]' data.xml | xmlq json | jq '.[].name'

# Count products per category
xmlq text '//product/@category-ref' data.xml | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn

# Extract all SKUs to a file
xmlq text '//product/@sku' data.xml > skus.txt

# Pretty-print a fragment from stdin
curl -s https://example.com/feed.xml | xmlq first 3 '//item'

# Validate all XML files
find . -name '*.xml' -exec xmlq validate {} \;

Typical exploration workflow

code

stat  →  "what is this file?"
tree  →  "what's the structure?"
tags  →  "what elements exist?"
attrs →  "what data fields are there?"
first →  "show me an example record"
select → "query specific data"
text  →  "extract values"
json  →  "convert for further processing"