Python - How to append the same XML element multiple times with lxml.objectify

Question

I have the following XML that I am trying to recreate with the lxml.objectify package

<file>
  <customers>
    <customer>
        <phone>
            <type>home</type>
            <number>555-555-5555</number>
        </phone>
        <phone>
            <type>cell</type>
            <number>999-999-9999</number>
        </phone>
        <phone>
            <type>home</type>
            <number>111-111-1111</number>
        </phone>
    </customer>
   </customers>
</file>

I can't figure out how to create the phone element multiple times. Basically, I have the following non-working code:

    # create phone element 1
    root.customers.customer.phone = ""
    root.customers.customer.phone.type = data_dict['PRIMARY PHONE1']
    root.customers.customer.phone.number = data_dict['PRIMARY PHONE TYPE 1']

    # create phone element 2
    root.customers.customer.phone = ""
    root.customers.customer.phone.type = data_dict['PRIMARY PHONE2']
    root.customers.customer.phone.number = data_dict['PRIMARY PHONE TYPE 2']

    # create phone element 3
    root.customers.customer.phone = ""
    root.customers.customer.phone.type = data_dict['PRIMARY PHONE3']
    root.customers.customer.phone.number = data_dict['PRIMARY PHONE TYPE 3']

Which of course only outputs one section of phone information in the resulting XML. Does anyone have any ideas?

Lior · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-07 20:26:52Z

2

You should create objectify.Element objects, and add them as children of root.customers.

For example, inserting two phone numbers can be done like this:

phone = objectify.Element('phone')
phone.type = data_dict['PRIMARY PHONE1']
phone.number = data_dict['PRIMARY PHONE TYPE 1']
root.customers.customer.append(phone)

phone = objectify.Element('phone')
phone.type = data_dict['PRIMARY PHONE2']
phone.number = data_dict['PRIMARY PHONE TYPE 2']
root.customers.customer.append(phone)

If you get unnecessary attributes on these elements when transforming the xml back to a string, use objectify.deannotate(root, xsi_nil=True, cleanup_namespaces=True). See lxml's objectify documentation for exact parameters of objectify.deannotate.

(If you're using an older version of lxml, which doesn't include the cleanup_namespaces keyword argument, do this instead:

from lxml import etree
# ...
objectify.deannotate(root, xsi_nil=True)
etree.cleanup_namespaces(root)

)

edited Sep 7, 2012 at 20:26

answered Sep 7, 2012 at 20:15

Lior

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2 Comments

Mike Driscoll Over a year ago

Actually, I need to add the 3 phone numbers to one customer, but thanks for the info about the Element object.

Lior Over a year ago

Oops! I've changed my answer accordingly ;)

ron rothman · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-07 20:21:42Z

1

Here's some sample code that constructs XML with the objectify E-Factory:

from lxml import etree
from lxml import objectify

E = objectify.E

fileElem = E.file(
    E.customers(
        E.customer(
            E.phone(
                E.type('home'),
                E.number('555-555-5555')
            ),
            E.phone(
                E.type('cell'),
                E.number('999-999-9999')
            ),
            E.phone(
                E.type('home'),
                E.number('111-111-1111')
            )
        )
    )
)

print(etree.tostring(fileElem, pretty_print=True))

I've hardcoded it here but you can convert to a loop over your data. Does that work for your purposes?

answered Sep 7, 2012 at 20:21

ron rothman

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1 Comment

Mike Driscoll Over a year ago

I think this would work, but I'd have to re-engineer my code. I may use it for something else though. Thanks!

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