How to get the root node of an xml file in Python?

Question

Basically I am using:

from xml.etree import ElementTree as ET

path = 'C:\cool.xml'
et = ET.parse ( path )

But I am not sure how to get the root from et?

dimakin · Accepted Answer · 2025-01-01 00:48:15Z

11

You probably want:

et.getroot()

Have a look at the official docs for ElementTree from the effbot site. Note that Python 2.5 (the first version of Python to include ElementTree out of the box) uses ElementTree 1.2, not the more recent 1.3. There aren't many differences, but just FYI in case.

edited Jan 1 at 0:48

dimakin

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answered Mar 26, 2009 at 19:23

Jarret Hardie

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rmmh · Accepted Answer · 2009-03-26 19:23:58Z

4

root = et.getroot()

I would recommend using lxml.etree instead of xml.etree.ElementTree, as lxml is faster and the interface is the same.

answered Mar 26, 2009 at 19:23

rmmh

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1 Comment

Joan Venge Over a year ago

There is no syntactical difference?

Jason Coon · Accepted Answer · 2009-03-26 19:23:54Z

2

root = et.getroot()

answered Mar 26, 2009 at 19:23

Jason Coon

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