Deleting xml tags with particular Element name using xml.dom in python

Question

How can we delete tags with particular Element name in an xml code using xml.dom (not lxml.etree) in python.

e.g. if we have the following xml code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<catalog>
   <book id="bk101">
   <author>Gambardella, Matthew</author>
   <title>XML Developer's Guide</title>
   <genre>Computer</genre>
   <price>44.95</price>
   <publish_date>2000-10-01</publish_date>
   <description>An in-depth look at creating applications 
   with XML.</description>
   </book>
   <book id="bk102">
   <author>Ralls, Kim</author>
   <title>Midnight Rain</title>
   <genre>Fantasy</genre>
   <price>5.95</price>
   <publish_date>2000-12-16</publish_date>
   <description>A former architect battles corporate zombies, 
   an evil sorceress, and her own childhood to become queen 
   of the world.</description>
   </book>
   <book id="bk103">
  <author>Corets, Eva</author>
  <title>Maeve Ascendant</title>
  <genre>Fantasy</genre>
  <price>5.95</price>
  <publish_date>2000-11-17</publish_date>
  <description>After the collapse of a nanotechnology 
  society in England, the young survivors lay the 
  foundation for a new society.</description>
  </book>
  <book id="bk104">
  <author>Corets, Eva</author>
  <title>Oberon's Legacy</title>
  <genre>Fantasy</genre>
  <price>5.95</price>
  <publish_date>2001-03-10</publish_date>
  <description>In post-apocalypse England, the mysterious 
  agent known only as Oberon helps to create a new life 
  for the inhabitants of London. Sequel to Maeve 
  Ascendant.</description>
  </book>
</catalog>

How can we delete all the tags named <title> using xml.dom in python?

bhansa · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-09 11:17:54Z

6

Select all the elements by title tag and remove them using removeChild

Update:

from xml.dom import minidom
xmldoc = minidom.parse("book_xml.xml")

nodes = xmldoc.getElementsByTagName("title")

for node in nodes:
    parent = node.parentNode
    parent.removeChild(node) 

print xmldoc.toxml()

You can also write new changes to xml file by :

with open("result.xml","w") as fs:
    fs.write(xmldoc.toxml())
    fs.close()

edited Jun 9, 2016 at 11:17

answered Jun 9, 2016 at 7:00

bhansa

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3 Comments

Aditya Kuls Over a year ago

can you please explain how to use 'removeChild' here? Your code would just print the tags that I want to delete. Thanks.

Aditya Kuls Over a year ago

Thank You so much. It(Update) works perfectly.(For future readers : 'doc_root' here is not required as we are not making use of it anywhere). Many thanks again.

bhansa Over a year ago

see the updated code doc_root removed, file write also added.

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