yq/pkg/yqlib/doc/usage/xml.md

XML

Encode and decode to and from XML. Whitespace is not conserved for round trips - but the order of the fields are.

As yaml does not have the concept of attributes, xml attributes are converted to regular fields with a prefix to prevent clobbering. This defaults to "+", use the --xml-attribute-prefix to change.

Consecutive xml nodes with the same name are assumed to be arrays.

All values in XML are assumed to be strings - but you can use from_yaml to parse them into their correct types:

yq e -p=xml '.myNumberField |= from_yaml' my.xml

XML nodes that have attributes then plain content, e.g:

<cat name="tiger">meow</cat>

The content of the node will be set as a field in the map with the key "+content". Use the --xml-content-name flag to change this.

Parse xml: with comments

A best attempt is made to preserve comments.

Given a sample.xml file of:

<!-- before cat -->
<cat>
	<!-- in cat before -->
	<x>3<!-- multi
line comment 
for x --></x>
	<!-- before y -->
	<y>
		<!-- in y before -->
		<d><!-- in d before -->z<!-- in d after --></d>
		
		<!-- in y after -->
	</y>
	<!-- in_cat_after -->
</cat>
<!-- after cat -->

then

yq e -p=xml '.' sample.xml

will output

# before cat
cat:
  # in cat before
  x: "3" # multi
  # line comment 
  # for x
  # before y

  y:
    #  in d before 
    d: z # in d after
    # in y after

# after cat