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Formatting XML in Kate - KDE Editor

TLDR; 

Kate is one awesome editor ( If you don't like Vim for its 'CLI'ness )

When working from the command line we can use a handy tool 'xmllint' to format XML files using its --format option.

But it is a tedious task to use it when you have some content in Kate ( more so if it is an unsaved file ) and want to format it.

Incase, you don't have xmllint installed, simply hit
sudo apt-get install libxml2-utils
and that will install it for you.

If you use xmllint you would do something like this,

  • Save File ( MySavedFile.xml )
  • Go to Command Line
  • cat MySavedFile.txt | xmllint --format - > MySavedFile.txt
and then reload our file in Kate.

  • Select text ( Complete or Partial )
  • Hit 'Ctrl + \'  or go to Tools -> Filter Text
    • Incase your Kate does not have the option for 'Filter Text' under tools, you just need to enable the 'Text Filter' plugin.
    • Go to Settings -> Plugin -> Enable 'Text Filter' and you are done.
  • Type 'xmllint --format -' and TADA! we have a formatted XML
  • Incase, you don't wish to modify the existing text, make sure you select 'Copy the result instead of pasting it'

  • Another good thing is that Kate caches the xmllint command in the text filter so you don't have to type it in again and again. 


Tested with ,

Kate: 3.8.5 / 17.04.3
Qt: 4.8.1 / 5.9.1
KDE Development Platform: 4.8.5 (4.8.5) / 5.3.8

on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS / Ubuntu 17.10
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Comments

  1. Jason9 March 2018 at 11:03

    Happily, this still works on 16.04 (actually KDE neon 5.12) provided you first go into settings > plugins and enable text filter. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown26 September 2019 at 13:01

    Very helpful. I use kate for everything and now also for XML editing. And it even works perfectly with quite large files (more then 41000 lines after format). Thanks you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Priscilla W. Heuer1 September 2023 at 18:30

    https://groomingwaves.com/the-fine-art-of-being-subtle-small-text-generator-at-your-fingertips/

    ReplyDelete

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