xnv

Interactive XML navigator and filter with XPath-like queries — inspired by jnv by ynqa.

Overview

xnv is a terminal-based interactive viewer for XML files. Type XPath-like queries to filter and explore the document tree in real time. Results update as you type. When you find what you need, press Enter twice to exit and print the query and output to stdout.

Installation

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew install jaedmunt/tap/xnv

Cargo

cargo install xnv

Prebuilt binaries

Download from the releases page for:

• x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
• x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
• aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu
• x86_64-apple-darwin
• aarch64-apple-darwin
• x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
• aarch64-pc-windows-msvc

Usage

# From a file
xnv data.xml

# From stdin
cat data.xml | xnv

# Start with a default query
xnv data.xml --default-filter '//item'

# Exit and write result to stdout
xnv data.xml --write-to-stdout

Query syntax

Examples

//item                   → all <item> elements
/catalog/book            → <book> elements at that exact path
@id                      → all elements with an id attribute
@type=premium            → elements where type="premium"
//title/text()           → just the text inside <title> tags

Keybindings

Global

Query editor

XML viewer (after Shift+↓)

Configuration

xnv loads its configuration from:

• Linux / macOS: ~/.config/xnv/config.toml
• Windows: %APPDATA%\xnv\config.toml

The file is created automatically on first run with defaults. You can override any setting — see default.toml for the full reference.

Example customisation

[xml]
indent = 4

[keybinds]
exit = ["Ctrl+C", "Ctrl+D"]
toggle_values = ["Ctrl+T"]

[keybinds.on_xml_viewer]
up = ["Up", "Ctrl+K"]
down = ["Down", "Ctrl+J"]

Features

• Real-time filtering — results update as you type with configurable debounce
• XPath-like queries — //tag, /path/to/elem, @attr, @attr=value, /text()
• Values-only mode — strip tags, show just text content (//tag/text())
• Collapse / expand — fold any element subtree in the viewer
• Tab completion — autocomplete paths from the document
• Clipboard support — copy queries or results with a single keybind
• Animated prefix — reactive snake animation on the query prompt
• Double-Enter exit — print query + output without leaving the TUI manually
• Cross-platform — Linux, macOS, Windows

Building from source

Requires Rust 1.85+.

git clone https://github.com/jaedmunt/xnv
cd xnv
cargo build --release
./target/release/xnv --help

Acknowledgements

Inspired by jnv by ynqa — the JSON navigator this tool is modelled after.

Built with:

• roxmltree — XML parsing
• promkit — TUI widget framework
• tokio — async runtime
• cargo-dist — release infrastructure

License

MIT