The inkscape command line ( and dbus ) has select-by-selector

In which some ( but not all ) css selectors can be used to select objects https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_selectors.php

To select all paths for example:

inkscape --actions="select-by-selector:path;select-list" drawing.svg

Will print a list of all paths at the command prompt ( or select paths on canvas with dbus )

However - how do you select a namespaced attribute - that is attributes with a colon in the middle

inkscape --actions="select-by-selector:path[inkscape:connection-end];select-list" drawing.svg

does not work.

It turns out you can use backslash, unicode character value and a space

inkscape --actions="select-by-selector:path[inkscape\3A connection-end];select-list" drawing.svg

will work :)

or without a space, but padded with zeros to make it 6 characters:

inkscape --actions="select-by-selector:path[inkscape\00003Aconnection-end];select-list" drawing.svg

Tested on Inkscape 1.2