How to parse an XML file with encoding declaration in Python?

Question

I have this XML file, called xmltest.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="GBK"?>
<productMeta>
    <bands>1,2,3,4</bands>
    <imageName>TestName.tif</imageName>  
    <browseName>TestName.jpg</browseName>
</productMeta>

And I have this Python dummy code:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
xmldoc = ET.parse('xmltest.xml')

But it raises a ValueError:

ValueError: multi-byte encodings are not supported

I understand this error, it raises because the encoding declaration in the first line of the XML file. The XML file is UTF-8 encoded but always have that declaration (I'm not the creator of the XML files to be analyzed). How can I avoid such encoding declaration when parsing an XML file such the former one?

Anand S Kumar · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-13 18:34:47Z

7

One thing that I tried, that worked for me is to open the xml file as a file object , then use ElementTree.fromstring() passing in the complete contents of the file.

Example -

>>> import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
>>> ef = ET.parse('a.xml')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "C:\Python34\lib\xml\etree\ElementTree.py", line 1187, in parse
    tree.parse(source, parser)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\xml\etree\ElementTree.py", line 598, in parse
    self._root = parser._parse_whole(source)
ValueError: multi-byte encodings are not supported
>>> with open('a.xml','r') as f:
...     ef = ET.fromstring(f.read())
...
>>> ef
<Element 'productMeta' at 0x028DF180>

You can also, create an XMLParser with the required encoding, and this should enable you to be able to parse strings from that encoding, Example -

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
xmlp = ET.XMLParser(encoding="utf-8")
f = ET.parse('a.xml',parser=xmlp)

edited Jul 13, 2015 at 18:34

answered Jul 13, 2015 at 18:07

Anand S Kumar

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4 Comments

Anand S Kumar Over a year ago

Make sure your encoding is correct so that the strings inside your xml file can be read. Also, is it giving the same error?

osjerick Over a year ago

Sorry, I don't know why but it works right now. :) Can you explain a little bit why your solution works?

Anand S Kumar Over a year ago

The solution works because instead of making the parser handle the encoding of the xml file, when we are using fromstring we are just passing in the string (and the parser is most assuming it to be in the correct encoding, etc) so it does not result in the error.

Anand S Kumar Over a year ago

Also, there can be one more solution to this, to create an xml parser, with the encoding specified. I have updated the answer for that as well.

shui · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-24 15:39:58Z

1

 ET.parse('a.xml', parser=ET.XMLParser(encoding='iso-8859-5'))

solved my problem when dealed with xml excel in python

answered Sep 24, 2019 at 15:39

shui

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