Comparing two xml using python ignoring particular attribute

Question

I am looking for a python based solution to compare two xml's ignoring a particular attribute value. For example, the below xml's should be treated as identical though the Ref and ID values are different as these would be different in each xml. One of the solution could be to substitue these with empty strings first and then compare xml's. Is there any library available in python which can do this while comparing the xmls.

#XML1:

<Objects>
   <Object Name="Object1" Ref="12345">
        <Item Name="Item1" value="Value1"/>
    </Object>
</Objects>

<RefTable>
    <Refitem ID="12345" Name="Item1"/>
</RefTable>


#XML2:

<Objects>
   <Object Name="Object1" Ref="54321">
        <Item Name="Item1" value="Value1"/>
    </Object>
</Objects>

<RefTable>
    <Refitem ID="54321" Name="Item1"/>
</RefTable>

If all you want to do is compare things, use difflib

Burhan Khalid
– Burhan Khalid

2013-09-09 05:04:57 +00:00
Commented Sep 9, 2013 at 5:04 — Burhan Khalid
– Burhan Khalid, Commented Sep 9, 2013 at 5:04

score 1 · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-09 05:03:26Z

1

Something like this could work:

root1 = etree.fromstring(xml1)
root2 = etree.fromstring(xml2)
for node1, node2 in zip(root1.iter(), root2.iter()):

   if node1.tag == node2.tag:
       a1 = node2.attrib
       a2 = node2.attrib

       if node1.tail != node2.tail:
           raise ValueError('XML differs')

       for ignored in ('ID',):

           try:
              del a1[ignored]
           except AttributeError:
              pass

           try:
              del a2[ignored]
           except AttributeError:
              pass

        if a1 != a2:
           raise ValueError('XML differs')
    else:
        raise ValueError('XML differs')

Instead of izip() you might need to use itertools.izip_longest()

edited Sep 9, 2013 at 5:03

answered Sep 9, 2013 at 4:42

user2618501

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1 Comment

fjarri Over a year ago

Except that you would want to compare text and tail in addition to tags before checking the attributes, and go through nodes recursively.

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