Parsing XML which is in a file but is 1 single line? - parsing

Question

So the problem is I am trying to use AWK, Perl to find how many records are inside one xml that is one loooong line sometimes in the megabytes.
Most if not all examples I've seen are assuming a nice structured xml like
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<spendownrequest xmlns="http://www.foo.com/Adv/HR/SSt">
<spenddowndata>
<employeeId>0002</employeeId>
<transactionId>103</transactionId>
<transactionType>T</transactionType>
</spenddowndata>
<spenddowndata>
<employeeId>0003</employeeId>
<transactionId>104</transactionId>
<transactionType>T</transactionType>
</spenddowndata>
<spenddowndata>
<employeeId>0004</employeeId>
<transactionId>105</transactionId>
<transactionType>T</transactionType>
</spenddowndata>
</spendownrequest>
with newlines at each row. These files are like this
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><spendownrequest xmlns="http://www.foo.com/Adv/HR/SSt">
<spenddowndata><employeeId>0002</employeeId><transactionId>103</transactionId>
<transactionType>T</transactionType></spenddowndata><spenddowndata><employeeId>0003</employeeId>
<transactionId>104</transactionId><transactionType>T</transactionType></spenddowndata><spenddowndata>
<employeeId>0005</employeeId><transactionId>105</transactionId><transactionType>T</transactionType>
</spenddowndata></spendownrequest>
One long line with only (1) newline at the end.
I tried:
awk -F'[<|>]' '/spenddowndata/ {i++} { print i }' file.xml
get back 1
How would I get the count for all 3 that are in this file?

Answer 1

awk 'BEGIN {RS="<"; count = 0;} { if ($0 ~ /^spenddowndata*/) {count++}} END {print(count);}'
Should work?

Answer 2

You can also store the pattern in a file, say pat.awk:
BEGIN{
FPAT = "(<spenddowndata>)"
}
{
print NF
}
To display count, run :
awk -f pat.awk file.xml

Answer 3

awk -F'</spenddowndata>' 'END{print (NF?NF-1:0)}' file
The ternary condition testing for NF is to avoid printing -1 for an empty file.

Answer 4

With grep:
grep -o '</spenddowndata>' f | wc -l
With awk (in fact gawk (Thank you #EdMorton)):
gawk -v RS='</spenddowndata>' 'END{print NR-1}' f
With perl:
perl -n0E 's!</spenddowndata>!$i++!ge; say $i+0'