Shell Programming and Scripting

nawk '
   BEGIN {
      RS=FS=OFS=""
   }
   {for(i=2;i<=NF;i++) gsub(" ", "", $i); print}' myFile

-bash-3.2$ cat test
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<REQUEST>
 <ID>874</ID>
 <TIMESTAMP>20090720062610</TIMESTAMP>
 <FLAG>Y</FLAG>
 <TO_FLAG>Y</TO_FLAG>
</REQUEST>

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<REQUEST>
 <ID>000</ID>
 <TIMESTAMP>20090720061218</TIMESTAMP>
 <FLAG>Y</FLAG>
 <TO_FLAG>Y</TO_FLAG>
</REQUEST>
-bash-3.2$ echo `cat test` | sed 's/> </></g'
<?xml version="1.0" ?><REQUEST><ID>874</ID><TIMESTAMP>20090720062610</TIMESTAMP><FLAG>Y</FLAG><TO_FLAG>Y</TO_FLAG></REQUEST><?xml version="1.0" ?><REQUEST><ID>000</ID><TIMESTAMP>20090720061218</TIMESTAMP><FLAG>Y</FLAG><TO_FLAG>Y</TO_FLAG></REQUEST>
-bash-3.2$

awk '/^<\?xml( |\t)+version="[0-9]+\.[0-9]+"( |\t)+\?>$/ && NR>1{ printf RS $0; next}
      NF { sub(/^[ \t]+/,""); print } END{ print RS }'   ORS=   filename

<?xml version="1.0" ?><REQUEST><ID>874</ID><TIMESTAMP>20090720062610</TIMESTAMP><FLAG>Y</FLAG><TO_FLAG>Y</TO_FLAG></REQUEST>
<?xml version="1.0" ?><REQUEST><ID>000</ID><TIMESTAMP>20090720061218</TIMESTAMP><FLAG>Y</FLAG><TO_FLAG>Y</TO_FLAG></REQUEST>

awk 'BEGIN{RS=ORS="\n\n"} $1=$1' file

awk 'BEGIN{RS=ORS="\n\n"} $1=$1' test | grep . | sed 's/> </></g'

echo `cat test`| sed -e 's|</REQUEST> |&\n|g' -e 's|> <|><|g'

 
sed 's/^ *//' file.xml | tr -d '\x0A'