Silently replacing characters in XML file using sed - can you help? 2

[bazil2]

(Elementary user)

I have a programme that is generating XML files.

Sometimes the XML file contains forbidden or undesirable characters in its values; for example:

...
<Name>Mr & Mrs Smith</Name>
...
<GermanStreet>Straße</GermanStreet>


I am looking for a method to change for example the ampersand and German character to specific alternatives:

& = and
ß = ss

Can anyone please help me with the correct syntax for using sed (or alternative) to do this?

In layman's terms, I want to 'scan' all lines in any XML files that lands in a specific input directory and there swap out the charcters accordingly; I read about he binary sed.

Best regards

 

[ChrisHirst]

Depending on how many of replacements you need to make, a series of tr (translate/transliterate) commands in a bash script would do that.

tr "from_string" "to_string" < path-to-file.ext

Chris.

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[SamBones]

In [tt]sed[/tt]...

cat oldfile.xml | sed 's/&/and/g;s/ß/ss/g' > newfile.xml