Answer by Dag Wieers for Parse XML to get node value in bash script?

Using xmllint and the --xpath option, it is very easy. You can simply do this:

XML_FILE=/path/to/file.xml

HOST=$(xmllint --xpath 'string(/config/global/resources/default_setup/connection/host)' $XML_FILE
USERNAME=$(xmllint --xpath 'string(/config/global/resources/default_setup/connection/username)' $XML_FILE
PASSWORD=$(xmllint --xpath 'string(/config/global/resources/default_setup/connection/password)' $XML_FILE 
DBNAME=$(xmllint --xpath 'string(/config/global/resources/default_setup/connection/dbname)' $XML_FILE

If you need to get to an element's attribute, that's also easy using XPath. Imagine you have the file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<addon id="screensaver.turnoff"
       name="Turn Off"
       version="0.10.0"
       provider-name="Dag Wieërs">
  ..snip..
</addon>

The needed shell statements would be:

VERSION=$(xmllint --xpath 'string(/addon/@version)' $ADDON_XML)
AUTHOR=$(xmllint --xpath 'string(/addon/@provider-name)' $ADDON_XML)