How to parse XML and store as a list ( python)

Question

Im sorry have to ask again.

I want to convert xml file to excel by xml.etree.ElementTree.

Assume my xml looks like :

<ParameterCluster>
          <Name>AAAAAA</Name>
          <ParameterDefinitionList>
            <ParameterDefinition>
              <Name>LengthMin</Name>
              <Type>UInt8</Type>
            </ParameterDefinition>
            <ParameterDefinition>
              <Name>LengthMax</Name>
              <Type>UInt8</Type>
            </ParameterDefinition>
          </ParameterDefinitionList>

          <VariantImlementationList>
            <VariantImlementation>
              <MajorVariantList>
                <MajorVariant>A_Basis</MajorVariant>
              </MajorVariantList>
              <MinorVariantList>
                        <ParameterValue>
                          <ValueList>
                            <Value>47</Value>
                          </ValueList>
                          <ValueList>
                            <Value>80</Value>
                          </ValueList>
                        </ParameterValue>
              </MinorVariantList>
              <MajorVariantList>
                <MajorVariant>B_Basis</MajorVariant>
                <MajorVariant>C_Basis</MajorVariant>
              </MajorVariantList>
              <MinorVariantList>
                        <ParameterValue>
                          <ValueList>
                            <Value>47</Value>
                          </ValueList>
                          <ValueList>
                            <Value>40</Value>
                          </ValueList>
                        </ParameterValue>
              </MinorVariantList> 
            </VariantImlementation>
          </VariantImlementationList>
        </ParameterCluster>

That means, I have 3 basis (A_basis, B_basis, C_basis).

And in A_ Basis, the Value of LengthMin is 47 and Value of LengthMax is 80.

But in B_basis and C_Basis. the Value of LengthMin is 47 and Value of LengthMax is 40.

So I want to get something like :

{'AAAAAA','LengthMin','UInt8','A_Basis',47}
{'AAAAAA','LengthMax','UInt8','A_Basis',80}
{'AAAAAA','LengthMin','UInt8','B_Basis',47}
{'AAAAAA','LengthMax','UInt8','B_Basis',40}
{'AAAAAA','LengthMin','UInt8','C_Basis',47}
{'AAAAAA','LengthMax','UInt8','C_Basis',40}

Then I can write it into excel file. Is that possible to get that kind of list?

are you sure this is valid XML? E.g fist <MinorVariantList> isn't closed. — Andrej Kesely
– Andrej Kesely, Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 13:15
Hi Andrej Kesely. I'm sorry Today is my first day use stackoverflow. I've change it in my Question. — Syo
– Syo, Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 13:31

Andrej Kesely · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-23 14:38:16Z

1

For parsing XML you can use BeautifulSoup instead of xml.etree.ElementTree (the interface is more intuitive).

The parsing is straightforward (assuming length of ParameterValue is always the same as ParameterValue.ValueList: Firstly you need to extract the the parameter types, and then iterate over all <MajorVariant> and populate result list.

If BeautifulSoup isn't a problem, here is example code:

data = """<ParameterCluster>
              <Name>AAAAAA</Name>
              <ParameterDefinitionList>
                <ParameterDefinition>
                  <Name>LengthMin</Name>
                  <Type>UInt8</Type>
                </ParameterDefinition>
                <ParameterDefinition>
                  <Name>LengthMax</Name>
                  <Type>UInt8</Type>
                </ParameterDefinition>
              </ParameterDefinitionList>

              <VariantImlementationList>
                <VariantImlementation>
                  <MajorVariantList>
                    <MajorVariant>A_Basis</MajorVariant>
                  </MajorVariantList>
                  <MinorVariantList>
                            <ParameterValue>
                              <ValueList>
                                <Value>47</Value>
                              </ValueList>
                              <ValueList>
                                <Value>80</Value>
                              </ValueList>
                            </ParameterValue>
                  </MinorVariantList>
                  <MajorVariantList>
                    <MajorVariant>B_Basis</MajorVariant>
                    <MajorVariant>C_Basis</MajorVariant>
                  </MajorVariantList>
                  <MinorVariantList>
                            <ParameterValue>
                              <ValueList>
                                <Value>47</Value>
                              </ValueList>
                              <ValueList>
                                <Value>40</Value>
                              </ValueList>
                            </ParameterValue>
                  </MinorVariantList>
                </VariantImlementation>
              </VariantImlementationList>
            </ParameterCluster>"""


from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from pprint import pprint

soup = BeautifulSoup(data, 'xml')

name, types = soup.select_one('Name'), []
for n, t in zip(soup.select('ParameterDefinitionList Name'), soup.select('ParameterDefinitionList Type')):
    types.append([name.text, n.text, t.text])

rv = []
for major, minor in zip(soup.select('MajorVariantList'), soup.select('MajorVariantList ~ MinorVariantList')):
    for mj in major.select('MajorVariant'):
        for i, mn in enumerate(minor.select('Value')):
            rv.append(types[i] + [mj.text, mn.text])

pprint(rv, width=120)

Output:

[['AAAAAA', 'LengthMin', 'UInt8', 'A_Basis', '47'],
 ['AAAAAA', 'LengthMax', 'UInt8', 'A_Basis', '80'],
 ['AAAAAA', 'LengthMin', 'UInt8', 'B_Basis', '47'],
 ['AAAAAA', 'LengthMax', 'UInt8', 'B_Basis', '40'],
 ['AAAAAA', 'LengthMin', 'UInt8', 'C_Basis', '47'],
 ['AAAAAA', 'LengthMax', 'UInt8', 'C_Basis', '40']]

edited Jul 23, 2018 at 14:38

answered Jul 23, 2018 at 13:50

Andrej Kesely

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4 Comments

Syo Over a year ago

Thank you Andrej Kesely. I'm now install BeautifulSoup & pprint package .I'll try it in my script. It's awesome , thank you. Have a nice day.

Syo Over a year ago

Hi Andrej Kesely. I write my script as : infile = open("ALL.xml","r") contents = infile.read() soup = BeautifulSoup(contents,'xml') then this error gives out : UnicodeDecodeError: 'charmap' codec can't decode byte 0x9d in position 2034240: character maps to <undefined> Im sorry Idont have any idea about this.. Do you ever face it before?

Andrej Kesely Over a year ago

@syo that is encoding eroor, your file probably contains some strange characters. Look around StackOverflow how to properly decode/encode the string.

Syo Over a year ago

Hi Andrej Kesely . It worked out and looks really nice. Thank you & sorry for late feedback. Nice day.

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