CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashsedplist
Drakulix
Drakulix

Reputation: 41

extract strings out of plist with bash script, maybe sed?

So here is my problem. How can I extract those strings into 3 variables with a bash script?

So out of this:

<key>GameDir</key> <string>C:/Program Files/</string> <key>GameEXE</key> <string>C:/Program Files/any.exe</string> <key>GameFlags</key> <string>-anyflag</string>

I want:

GameDir=C:/Program Files/
GameEXE=C:/Program Files/any.exe
GameFlags=-anyflag

Example Script:

echo GameDir
echo GameEXE
echo GameFlags

Example Output:

C:/Program Files/
C:/Program Files/any.exe
-anyflag

The order of the keys is not changing, only the strings itself. I am using OS X, so it needs to be a command that works out-of-the-box on OS X. Maybe this could work with sed?

Thanks Drakulix

Upvotes: 4

Views: 4768

Answers (3)

mivk
mivk

Reputation: 15019

You could use /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy for this, which seems to be included in OS X since at least 10.5 (man page). Example:

file="$HOME/yourfile"
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print" "$file"

And you could assign the vars you're interested in like this:

for var in GameDir GameEXE GameFlags ; do
    val=$( /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print $var" "$file" )
    eval "export $var='$val'"
    echo "$var = $val"
done

It seems more readable than bash/sed/awk regexes, and since it is a plist-specific tool, I presume it is reliable for extracting values. Just be aware that the keys are case-sensitive.

Upvotes: 8

ghostdog74
ghostdog74

Reputation: 343057

you can use awk, this works for multiline and multiple key, string values.

$ cat file
<key>GameDir</key> <string>C:/Program Files/
   </string>
<key>GameEXE</key>
  <string>C:/Program Files/any.exe
 </string> <key>GameFlags</key> <string>-anyflag</string>

$ awk -vRS="</string>" '/<key>/{gsub(/<key>|<string>|\n| +/,"") ; sub("</key>","=") ;print}' file
GameDir=C:/ProgramFiles/
GameEXE=C:/ProgramFiles/any.exe
GameFlags=-anyflag

Use eval to create the variables

$ eval $(awk -vRS="</string>" '/<key>/{gsub(/<key>|<string>|\n| +/,"") ; sub("</key>","=") ;print}' file )
$ echo $GameDir
C:/ProgramFiles/

Upvotes: 0

Dennis Williamson
Dennis Williamson

Reputation: 360665

Assuming Bash version >= 3.2

string='<key>GameDir</key> <string>C:/Program Files/</string> <key>GameEXE</key> <string>C:/Program Files/any.exe</string> <key>GameFlags</key> <string>-anyflag</string>'

or

string=$(<file)

and

pattern='<key>([^<]*)</key>[[:blank:]]*<string>([^<]*)</string>[[:blank:]]*'
pattern=$pattern$pattern$pattern
[[ $string =~ $pattern ]]    # extract the matches into ${BASH_REMATCH[@]}
for ((i=1; i<${#BASH_REMATCH[@]}; i+=2))
do
    declare ${BASH_REMATCH[i]}="${BASH_REMATCH[i+1]}"    # make the assignments
done
echo $GameDir    # these were missing dollar signs in your question
echo $GameEXE
echo $GameFlags

Upvotes: 3

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