Python: Update XML-file Using ElementTree While Keeping Namespace Labels

Question

I'm using ElementTree to remove a number of elements from an XML and then write it back.

After writing the file, the labels for the namespaces have all changed.

Because of that, the application that uses the XML doesn't accept the updated file any more.

Is it possible to tell ElementTree to retain the original labels?

For example. This is part of the source XML:

<gnc:account version="2.0.0">
  <act:name>Root Account</act:name>
  <act:id type="guid">9f8f1286bffd64d6dff54385a62b2650</act:id>
  <act:type>ROOT</act:type>
  <act:commodity>
    <cmdty:space>ISO4217</cmdty:space>
    <cmdty:id>NZD</cmdty:id>
  </act:commodity>
  <act:commodity-scu>100</act:commodity-scu>
</gnc:account>

After writing it back:

<ns0:account version="2.0.0">
  <ns5:name>Root Account</ns5:name>
  <ns5:id type="guid">9f8f1286bffd64d6dff54385a62b2650</ns5:id>
  <ns5:type>ROOT</ns5:type>
  <ns5:commodity>
    <ns4:space>ISO4217</ns4:space>
    <ns4:id>NZD</ns4:id>
  </ns5:commodity>
  <ns5:commodity-scu>100</ns5:commodity-scu>
</ns0:account>

The python code I'm using is:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

tree = ET.parse('file1.xml')
root = tree.getroot()
tree.write('file2.xml')

NZD · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-23 06:03:48Z

1

Switching to lxml made it work:

import lxml.etree as ET

tree = ET.parse(args.infile)
root = tree.getroot()
tree.write(args.outfile,
           xml_declaration=True,encoding='utf-8',
           method="xml")

Now the output is:

<gnc:account version="2.0.0">
  <act:name>Root Account</act:name>
  <act:id type="guid">9f8f1286bffd64d6dff54385a62b2650</act:id>
  <act:type>ROOT</act:type>
  <act:commodity>
    <cmdty:space>ISO4217</cmdty:space>
    <cmdty:id>NZD</cmdty:id>
  </act:commodity>
  <act:commodity-scu>100</act:commodity-scu>
</gnc:account>

... which is exactly the same as the input.

answered Oct 23, 2015 at 6:03

NZD

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