Parsing XML with ElementTree in Python

Question

I have XML like this:

<parameter>
 <name>ec_num</name>
 <value>none</value>
 <units/>
 <url/>
 <id>2455</id>
 <m_date>2008-11-29 13:15:14</m_date>
 <user_id>24</user_id>
 <user_name>registry</user_name>
</parameter>
<parameter>
 <name>swisspro</name>
 <value>Q8H6N2</value>
 <units/>

I want to parse the XML and extract the <value> entry which is just below the <name> entry marked 'swisspro'. I.e. I want to parse and extract the 'Q8H6N2' value.

How would I do this using ElementTree?

alecxe · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-13 02:12:36Z

1

It would by much easier to do via lxml, but here' a solution using ElementTree library:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

data = """<parameters>
<parameter>
 <name>ec_num</name>
 <value>none</value>
 <units/>
 <url/>
 <id>2455</id>
 <m_date>2008-11-29 13:15:14</m_date>
 <user_id>24</user_id>
 <user_name>registry</user_name>
</parameter>
<parameter>
 <name>swisspro</name>
 <value>Q8H6N2</value>
 <units/>
</parameter>
</parameters>"""

tree = ET.fromstring(data)

for parameter in tree.iter(tag='parameter'):
    name = parameter.find('name')
    if name is not None and name.text == 'swisspro':
        print parameter.find('value').text
        break

prints:

Q8H6N2

The idea is pretty simple: iterate over all parameter tags, check the value of the name tag and if it is equal to swisspro, get the value element.

Hope that helps.

answered Mar 13, 2014 at 2:12

alecxe

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2 Comments

lopezdp Over a year ago

i dont like your answer. i get this error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "xmlextractor.py", line 17, in <module> for num in counts.iter(tag = 'comment'): AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'iter'

alecxe Over a year ago

@lopezdp if you cannot apply the solution, does not mean it is wrong. Consider creating a separate question if you need help with that. Thanks.

YaleCheung · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-13 02:08:50Z

Here is an example: xml file

<span style="font-size:13px;"><?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<root>
 <person age="18">
    <name>hzj</name>
    <sex>man</sex>
 </person>
 <person age="19" des="hello">
    <name>kiki</name>
    <sex>female</sex>
 </person>
</root></span>

parse method

from xml.etree import ElementTree
def print_node(node):
    '''print basic info'''
    print "=============================================="
    print "node.attrib:%s" % node.attrib
    if node.attrib.has_key("age") > 0 :
        print "node.attrib['age']:%s" % node.attrib['age']
    print "node.tag:%s" % node.tag
    print "node.text:%s" % node.text
def read_xml(text):
    '''read xml file'''
    # root = ElementTree.parse(r"D:/test.xml")  #first method
    root = ElementTree.fromstring(text)  #second method

    # get element
    # 1 by getiterator 
    lst_node = root.getiterator("person")
    for node in lst_node:
        print_node(node)

    # 2 by getchildren
    lst_node_child = lst_node[0].getchildren()[0]
    print_node(lst_node_child)

    # 3 by .find
    node_find = root.find('person')
    print_node(node_find)

    #4. by findall
    node_findall = root.findall("person/name")[1]
    print_node(node_findall)

if __name__ == '__main__':
     read_xml(open("test.xml").read())

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