xml missing element in python

Question

System uses dom parser in python 2.7.2. The goal is to extract the .db file and use it on sql server.I currently have no problem with sqlite3 library. I have read the similar questions/answers about how to handle a missing element while parsing xml files.But still I couldn't figure out the solution. xml has 15000+ elements. here is the basic code from xml:

<topo>
   <vlancard>
      <id>4545</id>
      <nodeValue>21</nodeValue>
      <vlanName>voice</vlanName>
   </vlancard>
   <vlancard>
      <id>1234</id>
      <nodeValue>42</nodeValue>
      <vlanName>camera</vlanName>
   </vlancard>
   <vlancard>
      <id>9876</id>
      <nodeValue>84</nodeValue>
   </vlancard>
</topo>

Like the 3rd element, several elements do not have the node. That causes inconsistency on element numbers. i.e.

from xml.dom import minidom
xmldoc = minidom.parse('c:\vlan.xml')
vlId = xmldoc.getElementsByTagName('id')
vlValue = xmldoc.getElementsByTagName('nodeValue')
vlName = xmldoc.getElementsByTagName('vlanName')

after running the module:

IndexError: list index out of range
>>> len(id)
16163
>>> len(vlanName)
16155

Because of this problem , problem occurs for ordering the elements. while printing the table , parser passes the missing elements and element orders are mixed up. I use a simple while loop to insert the values into the table.

x=0
while x < (len(vlId)):
    c.execute('''insert into vlan ('id','nodeValue','vlanName') values ('%s','%s','%s') ''' %(id[x].firstChild.nodeValue, nodeValue[x].firstChild.nodeValue, vlanName[x].firstChild.nodeValue))
    x= x+1

How else can I do this? Any help will be appreciated.

Yusuf

KevinDTimm · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-15 13:52:54Z

2

Instead of parsing the entire xml and then inserting, parse each vlancard the retrieve it's id/value/name and then insert them into the DB.

answered Jul 15, 2011 at 13:52

KevinDTimm

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3 Comments

dorsalfin Over a year ago

in this way how do I seperate the missing nodes? does python consider it as NULL,None or ''

KevinDTimm Over a year ago

You will get a None from python, in which case you should insert the appropriate NULL into the DB for that element.

dorsalfin Over a year ago

thank you it worked with if vlanName == []: vlanName = ['NULL']

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