hxname2id(1)

hxname2id1

Move some name and id attributes from an a to its parent

Usage

hxname2id [-x] [file]

Overview

The hxname2id command reads an HTML file and looks for elements with an A element as first child, with no intervening text other than whitespace. If that A element has an ID or NAME attribute, it is moved to the parent element and removed from the A.

Because Netscape 4 doesn't understand ID attributes, it was common practice to write <H2><A NAME="sect7">...</A></H2> instead of <H2 ID="sect7">. This program can be used to convert such old HTML files to the new convention.

Other programs in this suite, such as hxmultitoc(1), require IDs on headings instead of A elements with NAME attributes. So it is useful to run hxname2id prior to running hxmultitoc and similar program. hxname2id can be used in a pipe.

Options

The following options are supported:

-x

Use XML conventions: empty elements are written with a slash at the end: <IMG />

Operands

The following operand is supported:

file

The name of an HTML file. If absent, standard input is read instead.

Diagnostics

The following exit values are returned:

0

Successful completion.

> 0

An error occurred in the parsing of the HTML file. hxname2id will try to correct the error and produce output anyway.

Releases

9 releases since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze); the text changed 2 times.

  1. 6.0
  2. 7–8
  3. 9–Arch

Bugs

The error recovery for incorrect HTML is primitive.

From html-xml-utils 8.8-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.