bash - delete node in a xml file with sed

Question

I'm trying to delete a node from my flatten xml file, my xml file contains following:

...
<cellule ref="1111"/>
</blah>
<workdocument id="bar" classement="1"/>
<tablau id="35">
<cellule ref="1250"/>
<area id="foo">
<subarea>Ipsum Lorem Dolor</subarea>
<area>
... 

I need to remove <workdocument id="bar" classement="1"/>, so from element <workdocument until it is closing "/>"

I tried the following with sed:

echo '<cellule ref="1111"/></blah><workdocument id="bar" classement="1"/><tablau id="35"><cellule ref="1250"/><area id="foo"><subarea>Ipsum Lorem Dolor</subarea><area>' |sed  's/<workdocument.*/>//'
<cellule ref="1111"/></blah><area id="foo"><subarea>Ipsum Lorem Dolor</subarea><area>

but <cellule ref="1250"/><area id="foo"> is also removed :/

Please note that the value of attribute classement is not known :/

Thank you

Answer 1

Try this: sed 's/<workdocument[^/]*/>//'

This uses [^/]* instead of .* after workdocument so that its match doesn't exceed the first />. [^/] matches every character other than /.