CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashxml-parsingdebianlibvirtvirsh
Awais Ahmed
Awais Ahmed

Reputation: 111

XPath not working when value has equal operator using virt-xml

I'm running command:

cat ./xml | virt-xml --edit --xml ./tag1/tag2="a=b" > output.xml

it should add text a=b in tag2 but it is creating <tag2=a>b</tag2=a> which is incorrect. I tried to escape equal character as well but no success.

How can I achieve this ?

the command I mentioned above should add text a=b in tag2 but it is creating <tag2=a>b</tag2=a> which is incorrect. I tried to escape equal character as well but no success.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 75

Answers (1)

John Bollinger
John Bollinger

Reputation: 181519

I'm running command:

cat ./xml | virt-xml --edit --xml ./tag1/tag2="a=b" > output.xml

it should add text a=b in tag2 but it is creating <tag2=a>b</tag2=a> which is incorrect. I tried to escape equal character as well but no success.

The quotation marks in your command are interpreted by the shell. virt-xml never sees them. And if it did (for example, if you escaped them from shell interpretation), then I anticipate that it would interpret them as literal characters. Similar applies to escaping one or more of the = signs.

The docs for virt-xml's --xml option are only summarized in that command's own manual page. It refers to the docs for virt-install for a full explanation, which explains that --xml has sub-options. You are, by default, using the xpath.set suboption to specify both node to edit and a value to set, but you can also specify the value to set separately via the xpath.value suboption. Its docs include:

May help sidestep problems if the string you need to set contains a '=' equals sign.

That's exactly your situation.

I anticipate, then, that you can obtain the result you want with

cat ./xml | 
  virt-xml --edit --xml xpath.set=./tag1/tag2 xpath.value=a=b \
  > output.xml

Or at least, that should resolve the particular you asked in the question.

Upvotes: 0

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