Hey guys! thanks for the replies!

era: Thanks for the solution! I won't wreck anything because all that the following process does is extract 17 arguments where it knows the tags..The tags with spaces are useless to me but are causing an erorr...I can't use an XML parser because I don't have the correct perl package. The solution you proposed works great but i am having a small problem now:

Here's part of my script:

Code:

for line in `perl -pe 's/<\s+/</g; s/\s+>/>\n/g; 1 while s/(<[^\s<>]+)\s+/$1/' $readyDir/$fileName`
    do

case "$line" in
    "</document>")

          if [ $currentNdocs -gt $maxDocs ]
               then
                 strFile="<DMS><documents>"$strFile"</documents></DMS>";
                 cd ${CLARIFY_DIR}/rulemanager
                 ./cbbatch -f ../jobs/dms/DMS_Integration.cbs -r ParseXML -as ${strFile} >> ${CLARIFY_DIR}/jobs/dms/OUT
                 strFile=""
                 currentNdocs=0
               else
                 strFile=$strFile$line;
               fi
           ;;

        *)
               strFile=$strFile$line;

Basically when the script detects the end of a an xml document. It sends whatever it has recovered from the strFile concatenated with 'line' (i.e. everything before the the </document> including it). My problem arises when i have spaces between the text. The "line" function, when it finds a space it is concatinating it into strFile, the problem is it eliminates the space. (strFile = $strFile$line #the space is lost). Now, after solving the <ta g> spaces, I need a way the line will ignore the <tag>My Coments</tag> mid space and accept it so the overall strFile contains that space. The batch that receives the document cannot handle spaces between tag and tag but it CAN handle spaces within the tags...

Any suggestions as to what I can do? A replacement for line?

A typical xml doc i receive is:

Code:

<?xml  version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?><DMS xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.com/XSD/DMSMessage.xsd"><documents>
<document><DMSObjectID>10011468999</DMSObjectID><DMSObjectCreateDateTime>2008-04-08T18:00:00</DMSObjectCreateDateTime>
<DMSObjectFileType>pdf</DMSObjectFileType><DMSObjectLink>http://aa.tie.ch.n1=10011468734&amp</DMSObjectLink><DMSObjectType>Contract</DMSObjectType>
<DMSObjectSubType>Audio Contract</DMSObjectSubType><ClarifyCustomerID>0703203</ClarifyCustomerID><ClarifyActionCode>0</ClarifyActionCode>
<WebOrderID>99933</WebOrderID><ClarifyPartRequestID/><POAPhoneNumber/><POAPartialPorting/><POAPortingWishDate></POAPortingWishDate><SignatureDate/>
<DMSObjectSubject></DMSObjectSubject><DMSObjectProductLine></DMSObjectProductLine><DMSObjectLanguage>de</DMSObjectLanguage>
<DMSAdditionalComment>My comments</DMSAdditionalComment></document></documents></DMS>

The line function, when it arrives at the tag DMSObjectSubType the Audio Contract turns into AudioContract in the strFile.

Another problem is the script should also be prepared to receive the XML's with spaces between the tags (</document> </documents>) and also with line terminators (</document>
</documents>)

any suggestions will help!!