How to parse SOAP XML with Python?

Question

Goal: Get the values inside <Name> tags and print them out. Simplified XML below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
   <soap:Body>
      <GetStartEndPointResponse xmlns="http://www.etis.fskab.se/v1.0/ETISws">
         <GetStartEndPointResult>
            <Code>0</Code>
            <Message />
            <StartPoints>
               <Point>
                  <Id>545</Id>
                  <Name>Get Me</Name>
                  <Type>sometype</Type>
                  <X>333</X>
                  <Y>222</Y>
               </Point>
               <Point>
                  <Id>634</Id>
                  <Name>Get me too</Name>
                  <Type>sometype</Type>
                  <X>555</X>
                  <Y>777</Y>
               </Point>
            </StartPoints>
         </GetStartEndPointResult>
      </GetStartEndPointResponse>
   </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Attempt:

import requests
from xml.etree import ElementTree

response = requests.get('http://www.labs.skanetrafiken.se/v2.2/querystation.asp?inpPointfr=yst')

# XML parsing here
dom = ElementTree.fromstring(response.text)
names = dom.findall('*/Name')
for name in names:
    print(name.text)

I have read other people recommending zeep to parse soap xml but I found it hard to get my head around.

It is still malformed. A quick Google search will help you find tools you can use to validate XML — Daniel Corin
– Daniel Corin, Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 4:32
@danielcorin I added the API link. The whole response can bee seen by loading that link labs.skanetrafiken.se/v2.2/querystation.asp?inpPointfr=yst — Clone
– Clone, Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 4:35

Daniel Corin · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-08 18:27:09Z

28

The issue here is dealing with the XML namespaces:

import requests
from xml.etree import ElementTree

response = requests.get('http://www.labs.skanetrafiken.se/v2.2/querystation.asp?inpPointfr=yst')

# define namespace mappings to use as shorthand below
namespaces = {
    'soap': 'http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/',
    'a': 'http://www.etis.fskab.se/v1.0/ETISws',
}
dom = ElementTree.fromstring(response.content)

# reference the namespace mappings here by `<name>:`
names = dom.findall(
    './soap:Body'
    '/a:GetStartEndPointResponse'
    '/a:GetStartEndPointResult'
    '/a:StartPoints'
    '/a:Point'
    '/a:Name',
    namespaces,
)
for name in names:
    print(name.text)

The namespaces come from the xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" and xmlns="http://www.etis.fskab.se/v1.0/ETISws" attributes on the Envelope and GetStartEndPointResponse nodes respectively.

Keep in mind, a namespace is inherited by all children nodes of a parent even if the namespace isn't explicitly specified on the child's tag as <namespace:tag>.

Note: I had to use response.content rather than response.body.

edited Jan 8, 2020 at 18:27

answered Jul 22, 2017 at 5:05

Daniel Corin

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2 Comments

Clone Over a year ago

Thank you for your answer! Where would I get the two links in namespaces dictionary if I were to repeat this on a different XML document?

Lord Elrond Over a year ago

@Clone you can get a dict of namespaces via dom.nsmap

Grayson Briggs · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-28 19:41:51Z

An old question but worth to mention another option for this task.

I like to use xmltodict (Github) a lightweight converter of XML to python dictionary.

Take your soap response in a variable named stack

Parse it with xmltodict.parse

In [48]: stack_d = xmltodict.parse(stack)

Check the result:

In [49]: stack_d
Out[49]:
OrderedDict([('soap:Envelope',
            OrderedDict([('@xmlns:soap',
                            'http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'),
                        ('@xmlns:xsd', 'http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema'),
                        ('@xmlns:xsi',
                            'http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'),
                        ('soap:Body',
                            OrderedDict([('GetStartEndPointResponse',
                                        OrderedDict([('@xmlns',
                                                        'http://www.etis.fskab.se/v1.0/ETISws'),
                                                    ('GetStartEndPointResult',
                                                        OrderedDict([('Code',
                                                                    '0'),
                                                                    ('Message',
                                                                    None),
                                                                    ('StartPoints',
                                                                    OrderedDict([('Point',
                                                                                    [OrderedDict([('Id',
                                                                                                '545'),
                                                                                                ('Name',
                                                                                                'Get Me'),
                                                                                                ('Type',
                                                                                                'sometype'),
                                                                                                ('X',
                                                                                                '333'),
                                                                                                ('Y',
                                                                                                '222')]),
                                                                                    OrderedDict([('Id',
                                                                                                '634'),
                                                                                                ('Name',
                                                                                                'Get me too'),
                                                                                                ('Type',
                                                                                                'sometype'),
                                                                                                ('X',
                                                                                                '555'),
                                                                                                ('Y',
                                                                                                '777')])])]))]))]))]))]))])

At this point it become as easy as to browse a python dictionnary

In [50]: stack_d['soap:Envelope']['soap:Body']['GetStartEndPointResponse']['GetStartEndPointResult']['StartPoints']['Point']
Out[50]:
[OrderedDict([('Id', '545'),
            ('Name', 'Get Me'),
            ('Type', 'sometype'),
            ('X', '333'),
            ('Y', '222')]),
OrderedDict([('Id', '634'),
            ('Name', 'Get me too'),
            ('Type', 'sometype'),
            ('X', '555'),
            ('Y', '777')])]

Rahul Rajput · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-07 09:07:13Z

2

Again, replying to an old question but I think this solution is worth sharing. Using BeautifulSoup was piece of cake for me. You can install BeautifulSoup form here.

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
xml = BeautifulSoup(xml_string, 'xml')
xml.find('soap:Body') # to get the soup:Body tag. 
xml.find('X') # for X tag

answered Feb 7, 2021 at 9:07

Rahul Rajput

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Comments

Santiago Trujillo Terán · Accepted Answer · 2022-11-16 21:16:48Z

1

try like this

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
    
response = requests.get('http://www.labs.skanetrafiken.se/v2.2/querystation.asp?inpPointfr=yst')
    
xml = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'xml')
xml.find('soap:Body')  # to get the soup:Body tag.
xml.find('X')  # for X tag

answered Nov 16, 2022 at 21:16

Santiago Trujillo Terán

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Comments

ZekeC · Accepted Answer · 2022-05-20 18:26:15Z

0

Just replace all the 'soap:' and other namespace prefixes such as 'a:' with '' (just remove them an make it a non-SOAP xml file)

new_response = response.text.replace('soap:', '').replace('a:', '')

Then you can just proceed normally.

answered May 20, 2022 at 18:26

ZekeC

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