Make string more user friendly/readable in bash script [duplicate] - bash

Question

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Remove/replace html tags in bash
(2 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
I've been trying to convert the following string into a more readable and usable form in a bash script. Certain parts are not static.
(<font color='whisper'>[ <name shortname='UserName' src='whisper-from'>UserName</name> whispers, "test" to you. ]</font>
A lot of the stuff in fact is not static. Basically, I want the end result to look like:
([UserName whispers, "test" to you. ]
I have done this time and time again in Java, PHP, and even VB6. However I am new to bash scripts, and can't seem to get it to work.
Could someone help me convert this Java code to bash script?
data = MyString.replaceAll("<.*?>", "");
data = MyString.replaceAll("<", "<");
data = MyString.replaceAll(">", ">");

Answer 1

In bash, you can use pattern substitution. Let's start with this string:
$ s='<Name>'
And, let's do substitutions on it:
$ s="${s//</<}"
$ s="${s//>/>}"
$ echo "$s"
<Name>
Bash works on globs. If you need regular expressions, try sed:
$ s='<Name>'
$ echo "$s" | sed 's/</</g; s/>/>/g; s/<[^>]*>/<>/g'
<>
In a more complex example:
$ MyStr='(<font color='whisper'>[ <name shortname='UserName' src='whisper-from'>UserName</name> whispers, "test" to you. ]</font>'
$ echo "$MyStr" | sed 's/</</g; s/>/>/g; s/<[^>]*>//g'
([ UserName whispers, "test" to you. ]

Answer 2

Use sed by itself or, since you mentioned bash, use sed within a bash script (for example b.sh):
#!/bin/bash
sed 's/>/>/g' | sed 's/</</g' | sed 's/<.*?>//g'
Input data (for example b.txt file):
asdasdasdds<.*?>dasdasassxrh
sadaswqqw<ssadasdasdsdvvxc
sadssadadsads>dsdsdewpppp
Output results:
asdasdasddsdasdasassxrh
sadaswqqw<ssadasdasdsdvvxc
sadssadadsads>dsdsdewpppp
Usage:
b.sh < b.txt
NOTE: I broke each replace all into separate sed calls in case you wanted to modify or add more formatting changes.