Big Chef

A Go-based tool for modifying XML, JSON, and text documents using XPath/JSONPath/Regex expressions and Lua transformations.

Features

• Multi-Format Processing:
  • XML (XPath)
  • JSON (JSONPath)
  • Text (Regex)
• Node Value Modification: Update text values in XML elements, JSON properties or text matches
• Attribute Manipulation: Modify XML attributes, JSON object keys or regex capture groups
• Conditional Logic: Apply transformations based on document content
• Complex Operations:
  • Mathematical calculations
  • String manipulations
  • Date conversions
  • Structural changes
  • Whole ass Lua environment
• Error Handling: Comprehensive error detection for:
  • Invalid XML/JSON
  • Malformed XPath/JSONPath
  • Lua syntax errors

Usage Examples

1. Basic field modification

<!-- Input -->
<price>44.95</price>

<!-- Command -->
chef -xml "//price" "v=v*2" input.xml

<!-- Output -->
<price>89.9</price>

2. Supports glob patterns

chef -xml "//price" "v=v*2" data/**.xml

3. Attribute Update

<!-- Input -->
<item price="10.50"/>

<!-- Command -->
chef -xml "//item/@price" "v=v*2" input.xml

<!-- Output --> 
<item price="21"/>

3. JSONPath Transformation

// Input
{
  "products": [
    {"name": "Widget", "price": 19.99},
    {"name": "Gadget", "price": 29.99}
  ]
}

// Command
chef -json "$.products[*].price" "v=v*0.75" input.json

// Output
{
  "products": [
    {"name": "Widget", "price": 14.99},
    {"name": "Gadget", "price": 22.49}
  ]
}

4. Regex Text Replacement

Regex works slightly differently, up to 12 match groups are provided as v1..v12 and s1..s12 for numbers and strings respectively. A special shorthand "!num" is also provided that simply expands to (\d*\.?\d+).

<!-- Input -->
<description>Price: $15.00 Special Offer</description>

<!-- Command -->
chef "Price: $!num Special Offer" "v1 = v1 * 0.92" input.xml

<!-- Output -->
<description>Price: $13.80 Special Offer</description>

5. Conditional Transformation

<!-- Input -->
<item stock="5" price="10.00"/>

<!-- Command -->
chef -xml "//item" "if tonumber(v.stock) > 0 then v.price = v.price * 0.8 end" input.xml

<!-- Output -->
<item stock="5" price="8.00"/>

Installation

go build -o chef main.go

# Process XML file
./chef -xml "//price" "v=v*1.2" input.xml

# Process JSON file 
./chef -json "$.prices[*]" "v=v*0.9" input.json