Install xml-coreutils with Homebrew, MacPorts

Project links

• Homepage
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• xml-awk
• xml-cat
• xml-cp
• xml-cut
• xml-echo
• xml-file
• xml-find
• xml-fixtags
• xml-fmt
• xml-grep
• xml-head
• xml-less
• xml-ls
• xml-mv
• xml-paste
• xml-printf
• xml-rm
• xml-sed
• xml-strings
• xml-unecho
• xml-wc

Project history

Laird Breyer's project pages describe xml-coreutils as an attempt to retrofit XML processing into existing shells so it can coexist with classical line-oriented tools. The project explicitly compares itself to GNU coreutils and tries to keep command names, short options, and behavior close to familiar Unix utilities where that makes sense.

The SourceForge release feed shows public tarball activity concentrated in 2010 and 2011, with versions 0.4, 0.7, 0.8, 0.8a, 0.8b, 0.8c, and 0.8.1. The homepage describes the project as early-stage and not ready for production use, but usable for simple tasks.

Adoption history

Adoption appears to have stayed niche. The official site points users to tarballs, a mailing list, manual pages, a tutorial, and information for DEB/RPM packaging, while the SourceForge code page exposes a CVS repository snapshot rather than a later Git migration.

The project's own related-tools page places it among XML shell utilities such as XMLSH, XSH, XMLStarlet, XMLTK, XMLgawk, and xml2, suggesting it was part of the late-2000s effort to make XML friendlier to command-line users.

How it is used

The suite includes XML analogues of common shell operations: xml-cat, xml-cp, xml-cut, xml-find, xml-grep, xml-head, xml-less, xml-ls, xml-mv, xml-rm, xml-sed, xml-strings, xml-wc, and others. The tutorial emphasizes using these tools like traditional Unix commands, but against XML tree structure rather than raw text lines.

It is most practical as a historical and experimental shell toolkit for XML workflows, especially for users who want command composition over writing XPath-heavy scripts or full programs.

Why package nerds care

xml-coreutils is significant less for broad adoption than for its packaging idea: turn a structured-data problem into many small Unix commands, each independently documented, scriptable, and installable.

It also captures a moment before JSON became the dominant shell-adjacent structured format, when XML was common enough that developers wanted grep/sed/coreutils-like ergonomics for it.

Timeline

• 2010-05-11: SourceForge feed lists early 0.4, 0.7, and 0.8 tarballs.
• 2010-05-16: 0.8a tarball published.
• 2010-09-13: 0.8b tarball published.
• 2011-04-10: 0.8c tarball published.
• 2011-04-16: 0.8.1 tarball published.

Related projects

• Related tools listed by the project include GNU coreutils, XMLSH, XSH, XMLStarlet, XMLTK, XMLgawk, xmltools, and xml2. Runtime/build-adjacent technologies named by the site include Expat and S-Lang.

Sources

• https://sourceforge.net/p/xml-coreutils/code/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/xml-coreutils/rss?path=/
• https://www.lbreyer.com/xml-coreutils.html
• https://xml-coreutils.sourceforge.net/
• https://xml-coreutils.sourceforge.net/man.html
• https://xml-coreutils.sourceforge.net/related.html
• https://xml-coreutils.sourceforge.net/xml_coreutils_tutorial.html