HXSELECT(1)                     HTML-XML-utils                     HXSELECT(1)

NAME
       hxselect - extract elements or attributes that match a (CSS) selector

SYNOPSIS
       hxselect [ -i ] [ -c ] [ -l language ] [ -s separator ] selectors

DESCRIPTION
       hxselect reads a well-formed XML document and outputs all elements and
       attributes that match one of the CSS selectors that are given as an
       argument. For example

           hxselect ol li:first-child

       selects the first li (list item in XHTML) in an ol (ordered list).

       If there are multiple selectors, they must be separated by commas. For
       example,

           hxselect p + ul, blockquote ol

       selects all ul elements that follow a p and all ol elements that are
       descendants of a blockquote element.

       The command operates on the standard input.

       hxselect assumes that class selectors (".foo") refer to an attribute
       called "class" and that ID selectors ("#foo") refer to an attribute
       called "id".

       The experimental attribute node selector '::attr(name)' is supported
       and selects the attribute of that name.

       Comments and processing instructions are ignored, i.e., they are read
       but never written.

OPTIONS
       The following options are supported:

       -i        Match case-insensitively. Useful for HTML and some other
                 SGML-based languages.

       -c        Print content only. Without -c, the start and end tag of the
                 matched element are printed as well; with -c only the
                 contents of the matched element are printed. If an attribute
                 rather than an element is selected (::attr() selector), only
                 the value of the attribute is printed.

       -l language
                 Sets the default language, in case the root element doesn't
                 have an xml:lang attribute (default: none). Example: -l en

       -s separator
                 A string to print after each match (default: empty). Accepts
                 C-like escapes. Example: -s ' 0(aq to print an empty line
                 after each match.

OPERANDS
       The following operand is supported:

       selectors
              One or more comma-separated selectors. Most selectors from CSS
              level 3 are supported, with the exception of selectors that
              require interaction (e.g., ':active') or layout (e.g., ':first-
              line).

BUGS
       Case-insensitive selectors (option -i) currently only works for ASCII
       characters ("a" matches "A"), not for other characters ("a" does not
       match "A").

SEE ALSO
       asc2xml(1), xml2asc(1), hxnormalize(1), hxremove(1), UTF-8 (RFC 2279)

7.x                               10 Jul 2011                      HXSELECT(1)