how to get node value from xml string in Python

Question

I have the following xml string and I want to get the value from ReturnCode in Python. How can I easily do this?

I've tried using element tree:

tree = ET.ElementTree(ET.fromstring(response))
root = tree.getroot()

<API>
    <Result>
        <ErrorCode ErrorType=\"Success\">0</ErrorCode>
        <ReturnCode>0</ReturnCode>
    </Result>
<API>

The actual response value looks like this-

'<API><Result><ErrorCode ErrorType=\"Success\">0</ErrorCode<ReturnCode>0</ReturnCode></Result><API>'

I would like to be able to use the value from ReturnCode for additional logic.

Also state the exact error you get and show the code that produces response, because it's unclear what this variable actually contains. — Tomalak
– Tomalak, Commented Jun 12, 2019 at 7:35
@Tomalak Great point, I guess that would help. I updated original post with that info! Thank you — MAB
– MAB, Commented Jun 12, 2019 at 12:58

Wei Huang · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-12 07:23:26Z

2

As official documents xml.etree.elementtree. Parse your xml document like this:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
# root = ET.fromstring(your_xml_content)
# root.tag
body = '<API><Result><ErrorCode ErrorType="Success">0</ErrorCode><ReturnCode>0</ReturnCode></Result></API>'
response = ET.fromstring(body)
result = response.findall('Result')[0]
return_code = result.find('ReturnCode').text

## output '0'

Updated: I missed result.

edited Jun 12, 2019 at 7:23

answered Jun 12, 2019 at 0:45

Wei Huang

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5 Comments

MAB Over a year ago

I greatly appreciate the suggestion, however, I receive an error: ValueError: can only parse strings. It appears I am getting back a string. The exact response is: xmlResponse Body: "<API><Result><ErrorCode ErrorType=\"Success\">0</ErrorCode><ReturnCode>0</ReturnCode></Result></API>"

MAB Over a year ago

updated last comment with what I think appears to be a string

Wei Huang Over a year ago

a = '<API><Result><ErrorCode ErrorType="Success">0</ErrorCode><ReturnCode>0</ReturnCode></Result></API>' then, ET.formstring(a)

MAB Over a year ago

to clarify this is Python 3+. not sure if that matters here. I am getting an unresolved error for "find" where you edited the original answer. This is the line with issue return_code = find('ReturnCode').text

Wei Huang Over a year ago

return_code = result.find('ReturnCode').text. the missed result, :P

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