---
name: "hxselect"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "html-xml-utils"
version: "8.8-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/hxselect"
---

# hxselect(1)

extract elements or attributes that match a (CSS) selector

## NAME

hxselect - extract elements or attributes that match a (CSS) selector

## SYNOPSIS

**hxselect** \[ **-i** \] \[ **-c** \] \[ **-l** *language* \] \[ **-s** *separator* \] *selectors*

## DESCRIPTION

**hxselect** reads a well-formed XML document and outputs all elements and attributes that match one of the CSS selectors that are given as an argument. For example

```
hxselect ol li:first-child
```

selects the first li (list item in XHTML) in an ol (ordered list).

If there are multiple selectors, they must be separated by commas. For example,

```
hxselect p + ul, blockquote ol
```

selects all ul elements that follow a p and all ol elements that are descendants of a blockquote element.

The command operates on the standard input.

**hxselect** assumes that class selectors (".foo") refer to an attribute called "class" and that ID selectors ("#foo") refer to an attribute called "id".

The experimental attribute node selector '::attr(*name*)' is supported and selects the attribute of that name.

Comments and processing instructions are ignored, i.e., they are read but never written.

## OPTIONS

The following options are supported:

- **-i**

  Match case-insensitively. Useful for HTML and some other SGML-based languages.

- **-c**

  Print content only. Without **-c**, the start and end tag of the matched element are printed as well; with **-c** only the contents of the matched element are printed. If an attribute rather than an element is selected (::attr() selector), only the value of the attribute is printed.

- **-l** *language*

  Sets the default language, in case the root element doesn't have an xml:lang attribute (default: none). Example: **-l en**

- **-s** *separator*

  A string to print after each match (default: empty). Accepts C-like escapes. Example: **-s '\\\\n\\\\n'** to print an empty line after each match.

## OPERANDS

The following operand is supported:

- *selectors*

  One or more comma-separated selectors. Most selectors from CSS level 3 are supported, with the exception of selectors that require interaction (e.g., ':active') or layout (e.g., ':first-line).

## BUGS

Case-insensitive selectors (option **-i**) currently only works for ASCII characters ("a" matches "A"), not for other characters ("ä" does not match "Ä").

## SEE ALSO

[**asc2xml**(1)](/asc2xml/1.md), [**xml2asc**(1)](/xml2asc/1.md), [**hxnormalize**(1)](/hxnormalize/1.md), [**hxremove**(1)](/hxremove/1.md), **UTF-8** (RFC 2279)