🔍 cpe parse

Parse a CPE 2.2 or 2.3 formatted string and display its individual components (part, vendor, product, version, update, edition, language, etc.).

The command automatically detects whether the input is CPE 2.2 (starts with cpe:/) or CPE 2.3 (starts with cpe:2.3:). It can also convert the input to another format via the --to flag.

Usage

cpe parse [flags] <cpe-string>

Arguments

Argument	Description
<cpe-string>	A single CPE string in 2.2 (cpe:/...) or 2.3 (cpe:2.3:...) form. Exactly one argument is required.

Flags

Flag	Shorthand	Type	Default	Description
--to	-t	string	""	Convert to the given format instead of printing components. Accepted values: 2.2, 2.3, wfn.

This command also inherits the global flags --output, -o (text/json) and --no-color.

How It Works

The diagram below shows how cpe parse detects the input format, parses it into a CPE object, and then either prints the components (default) or converts it to a target format (--to).

Examples

Parse a CPE 2.3 string

cpe parse "cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:windows:10:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"

Expected output:

CPE 2.3 URI: cpe:2.3:a:microsoft:windows:10:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Part:        a (Application)
Vendor:      microsoft
Product:     windows
Version:     10
Update:      *
Edition:     *
Language:    *

Parse a CPE 2.2 string as JSON

cpe -o json parse "cpe:/a:apache:log4j:2.0"

The output is a JSON object representing the parsed CPE structure, including its Cpe23 field populated by the parser.

Convert a CPE 2.3 string to CPE 2.2

cpe parse -t 2.2 "cpe:2.3:a:apache:log4j:2.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"

Expected output:

cpe:/a:apache:log4j:2.0

Convert to Well-Formed Name (WFN)

cpe parse -t wfn "cpe:/a:apache:log4j:2.0"

Expected output:

wfn:[part=a,vendor=apache,product=log4j,version=2.0,update=,edition=,language=]

Error Handling

If the input string does not start with cpe:/ or cpe:2., the command returns an error and exits with code 1:

unrecognized CPE format: <input> (expected CPE 2.2 or 2.3)

If --to is given an unsupported value, the command returns:

unsupported conversion format: <value> (supported: 2.2, 2.3, wfn)

Related API Modules

• Parsing — ParseCpe22, ParseCpe23, FormatCpe22, FormatCpe23
• WFN — FromCPE for Well-Formed Name conversion
• Validation — ValidateCPE for validating parsed components