How to read xml file using python? [duplicate]

Question

I I have a xml file like this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Automation_Config>
    <Path>
        <Log>.\SERVER.log</Log>
        <Flag_Path>.\Flag</Flag_Path>
        <files>.\PO</files>
    </Path>

</Automation_Config>

I want to read the xml file and get the element of those, and assign to variable.

I tried this, but I can not get the element of Log.

import xml.dom.minidom
def main ():
    Load_XML = xml.dom.minidom.parse('D:/Config.xml')
    print (Load_XML.nodeName)
    print (Load_XML.firstChild.tagName)

    Log = Load_XML.getElementsByTagName ("Log")
    print (Log)

main()

try with stackabuse.com/reading-and-writing-xml-files-in-python — Daniel Muñoz
– Daniel Muñoz, Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 5:28
I strongly advice against using xml.dom.minidom. Unless you have a very specific need to work with the very minimal and basic W3C DOM API, you want to be using the xml.etree.ElementTree API instead. The DOM API is aimed as a minimal common ground between lots of programming languages, many not nearly as expressive as Python. As a consequence, it is very, very, very tedious to have to work with. — Martijn Pieters
– Martijn Pieters, Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 13:03
With the ElementTree API, getting the string contents of the first Log element is as trivial as tree = ET.parse(filename) then value = tree.find(".//Log").text. — Martijn Pieters
– Martijn Pieters, Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 13:07

pawelbylina · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-05 07:00:47Z

5

Use ElementTree:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
tree = ET.parse('Config.xml')
root = tree.getroot()
print(root.findall('.//Log'))

Output:

pawel@pawel-XPS-15-9570:~/test$ python parse_xml.py 
[<Element 'Log' at 0x7fb3f2eee9f

answered Aug 5, 2019 at 7:00

pawelbylina

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Comments

Benjamin Loison · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-29 13:51:06Z

0

Below:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
xml = '''<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Automation_Config>
    <Path>
        <Log>.\SERVER.log</Log>
        <Flag_Path>.\Flag</Flag_Path>
        <files>.\PO</files>
    </Path>

</Automation_Config>'''

root = ET.fromstring(xml)
for idx,log_element in enumerate(root.findall('.//Log')):
  print('{}) Log value: {}'.format(idx,log_element.text))

output

0) Log value: .\SERVER.log

edited May 29 at 13:51

Benjamin Loison

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answered Aug 5, 2019 at 8:07

balderman

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