Programming

I really don't know.

Because you haven't shown the XML.

this is something like it

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>

<metadata>
    <name>John Does<name>
    <project>FIC042040</project>
    <class>FIC042030</class>
    <address>3232 Wellms</address>
    <city>Franklin</city>
    <state>TN</state>
    <filetype>Baker Group</filetype>
    <image>job12345.jpg</image>
    <jobstate>prepress</jobstate>
</metadata>

when I run name=$(grep -r "<name>.*</name>" $DIRECTORY .xml)

I get the result of

Name: path/path/path/filename.xml/<name>John Does</name>

I just need it to be result of
Name: John Does


This <name> will always be in the xml files but there are several lines and other elements into it that will change the location.

Thank you.

Time and time again people post simplified XML and complain when code doesn't work with their real data. I've learned to be picky.

The code I've given you ought to work. If the name had contained newlines or contained extra tag elements or anything like that, it wouldn't.

my apologies if Im being complicated Im still trying to learn and understand whats going on to help me better. Can you explain whats going on or tell me where I can learn what you did?

awk is a programming language found on any UNIX system handy for processing text files. It is handy like grep, powerful like sed, and has actual variables and statements, but not as unwieldy as perl. A full description of it would be out of scope here.

match() is a function that returns a positive number if the regular expression is found inside the line( i.e. $0 ). If it returns anything positive, then the code block following it inside { } is executed.

RSTART and RLENGTH are variables that tell where the string is found, match() sets them.

substr() is used to extract the string. substr($0, RSTART, RLENGTH) would extract the whole thing, just like egrep. Adding to RSTART and subtracting from RLENGTH excludes the tag portion.

Lastly, print prints.

Here's an old post of mine if you want to explore awk more in depth.