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  • Committer: Dave Kuhlman
  • Date: 2017-04-15 16:24:56 UTC
  • Revision ID: dkuhlman@davekuhlman.org-20170415162456-iav9vozzg4iwqwv3
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
 
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  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
 
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    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
 
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    <title>20.5. xml.etree.ElementTree — The ElementTree XML API &mdash; Python 3.5.2 documentation</title>
 
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          title="Search within Python 3.5.2 documentation"
 
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  <div class="section" id="module-xml.etree.ElementTree">
 
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<span id="xml-etree-elementtree-the-elementtree-xml-api"></span><h1>20.5. <a class="reference internal" href="#module-xml.etree.ElementTree" title="xml.etree.ElementTree: Implementation of the ElementTree API."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">xml.etree.ElementTree</span></code></a> &#8212; The ElementTree XML API<a class="headerlink" href="#module-xml.etree.ElementTree" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
 
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<p><strong>Source code:</strong> <a class="reference external" href="https://hg.python.org/cpython/file/3.5/Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py">Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py</a></p>
 
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<hr class="docutils" />
 
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<p>The <a class="reference internal" href="#module-xml.etree.ElementTree" title="xml.etree.ElementTree: Implementation of the ElementTree API."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">xml.etree.ElementTree</span></code></a> module implements a simple and efficient API
 
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for parsing and creating XML data.</p>
 
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<div class="versionchanged">
 
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<p><span class="versionmodified">Changed in version 3.3: </span>This module will use a fast implementation whenever available.
 
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The <code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">xml.etree.cElementTree</span></code> module is deprecated.</p>
 
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</div>
 
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<div class="admonition warning">
 
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<p class="first admonition-title">Warning</p>
 
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<p class="last">The <a class="reference internal" href="#module-xml.etree.ElementTree" title="xml.etree.ElementTree: Implementation of the ElementTree API."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">xml.etree.ElementTree</span></code></a> module is not secure against
 
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maliciously constructed data.  If you need to parse untrusted or
 
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unauthenticated data see <a class="reference internal" href="xml.html#xml-vulnerabilities"><span>XML vulnerabilities</span></a>.</p>
 
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</div>
 
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<div class="section" id="tutorial">
 
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<h2>20.5.1. Tutorial<a class="headerlink" href="#tutorial" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
 
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<p>This is a short tutorial for using <a class="reference internal" href="#module-xml.etree.ElementTree" title="xml.etree.ElementTree: Implementation of the ElementTree API."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">xml.etree.ElementTree</span></code></a> (<code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">ET</span></code> in
 
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short).  The goal is to demonstrate some of the building blocks and basic
 
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concepts of the module.</p>
 
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<div class="section" id="xml-tree-and-elements">
 
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<h3>20.5.1.1. XML tree and elements<a class="headerlink" href="#xml-tree-and-elements" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
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<p>XML is an inherently hierarchical data format, and the most natural way to
 
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represent it is with a tree.  <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">ET</span></code> has two classes for this purpose -
 
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<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">ElementTree</span></code></a> represents the whole XML document as a tree, and
 
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<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> represents a single node in this tree.  Interactions with
 
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the whole document (reading and writing to/from files) are usually done
 
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on the <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">ElementTree</span></code></a> level.  Interactions with a single XML element
 
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and its sub-elements are done on the <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> level.</p>
 
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</div>
 
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<div class="section" id="parsing-xml">
 
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<span id="elementtree-parsing-xml"></span><h3>20.5.1.2. Parsing XML<a class="headerlink" href="#parsing-xml" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
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<p>We&#8217;ll be using the following XML document as the sample data for this section:</p>
 
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<div class="highlight-xml"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="cp">&lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;</span>
 
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<span class="nt">&lt;data&gt;</span>
 
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    <span class="nt">&lt;country</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Liechtenstein&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;rank&gt;</span>1<span class="nt">&lt;/rank&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;year&gt;</span>2008<span class="nt">&lt;/year&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;gdppc&gt;</span>141100<span class="nt">&lt;/gdppc&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Austria&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;E&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Switzerland&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;W&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
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    <span class="nt">&lt;/country&gt;</span>
 
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    <span class="nt">&lt;country</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Singapore&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;rank&gt;</span>4<span class="nt">&lt;/rank&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;year&gt;</span>2011<span class="nt">&lt;/year&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;gdppc&gt;</span>59900<span class="nt">&lt;/gdppc&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Malaysia&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;N&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
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    <span class="nt">&lt;/country&gt;</span>
 
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    <span class="nt">&lt;country</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Panama&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;rank&gt;</span>68<span class="nt">&lt;/rank&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;year&gt;</span>2011<span class="nt">&lt;/year&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;gdppc&gt;</span>13600<span class="nt">&lt;/gdppc&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Costa Rica&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;W&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
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        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Colombia&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;E&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
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    <span class="nt">&lt;/country&gt;</span>
 
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<span class="nt">&lt;/data&gt;</span>
 
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</pre></div>
 
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</div>
 
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<p>We can import this data by reading from a file:</p>
 
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<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">xml.etree.ElementTree</span> <span class="k">as</span> <span class="nn">ET</span>
 
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<span class="n">tree</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">ET</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">parse</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;country_data.xml&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
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<span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">getroot</span><span class="p">()</span>
 
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</pre></div>
 
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</div>
 
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<p>Or directly from a string:</p>
 
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<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">ET</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">fromstring</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">country_data_as_string</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
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</pre></div>
 
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</div>
 
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<p><a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">fromstring()</span></code></a> parses XML from a string directly into an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a>,
 
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which is the root element of the parsed tree.  Other parsing functions may
 
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create an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">ElementTree</span></code></a>.  Check the documentation to be sure.</p>
 
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<p>As an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a>, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">root</span></code> has a tag and a dictionary of attributes:</p>
 
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<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span>
 
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<span class="go">&#39;data&#39;</span>
 
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<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">attrib</span>
 
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<span class="go">{}</span>
 
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</pre></div>
 
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</div>
 
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<p>It also has children nodes over which we can iterate:</p>
 
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<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">child</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="p">:</span>
 
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<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">child</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">child</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">attrib</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
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<span class="gp">...</span>
 
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<span class="go">country {&#39;name&#39;: &#39;Liechtenstein&#39;}</span>
 
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<span class="go">country {&#39;name&#39;: &#39;Singapore&#39;}</span>
 
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<span class="go">country {&#39;name&#39;: &#39;Panama&#39;}</span>
 
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</pre></div>
 
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</div>
 
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<p>Children are nested, and we can access specific child nodes by index:</p>
 
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<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">][</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span>
 
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<span class="go">&#39;2008&#39;</span>
 
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</pre></div>
 
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</div>
 
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<div class="admonition note">
 
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<p class="first admonition-title">Note</p>
 
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<p class="last">Not all elements of the XML input will end up as elements of the
 
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parsed tree. Currently, this module skips over any XML comments,
 
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processing instructions, and document type declarations in the
 
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input. Nevertheless, trees built using this module&#8217;s API rather
 
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than parsing from XML text can have comments and processing
 
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instructions in them; they will be included when generating XML
 
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output. A document type declaration may be accessed by passing a
 
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custom <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">TreeBuilder</span></code></a> instance to the <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a>
 
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constructor.</p>
 
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</div>
 
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</div>
 
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<div class="section" id="pull-api-for-non-blocking-parsing">
 
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<span id="elementtree-pull-parsing"></span><h3>20.5.1.3. Pull API for non-blocking parsing<a class="headerlink" href="#pull-api-for-non-blocking-parsing" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
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<p>Most parsing functions provided by this module require the whole document
 
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to be read at once before returning any result.  It is possible to use an
 
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<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a> and feed data into it incrementally, but it is a push API that
 
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calls methods on a callback target, which is too low-level and inconvenient for
 
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most needs.  Sometimes what the user really wants is to be able to parse XML
 
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incrementally, without blocking operations, while enjoying the convenience of
 
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fully constructed <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> objects.</p>
 
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<p>The most powerful tool for doing this is <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLPullParser</span></code></a>.  It does not
 
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require a blocking read to obtain the XML data, and is instead fed with data
 
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incrementally with <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.feed" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.feed"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLPullParser.feed()</span></code></a> calls.  To get the parsed XML
 
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elements, call <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLPullParser.read_events()</span></code></a>.  Here is an example:</p>
 
213
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">parser</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">ET</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XMLPullParser</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="s1">&#39;start&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">&#39;end&#39;</span><span class="p">])</span>
 
214
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">parser</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">feed</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;&lt;mytag&gt;sometext&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
215
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="nb">list</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">parser</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">read_events</span><span class="p">())</span>
 
216
<span class="go">[(&#39;start&#39;, &lt;Element &#39;mytag&#39; at 0x7fa66db2be58&gt;)]</span>
 
217
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">parser</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">feed</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39; more text&lt;/mytag&gt;&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
218
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">event</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">elem</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">parser</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">read_events</span><span class="p">():</span>
 
219
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">event</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
220
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">elem</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">&#39;text=&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">elem</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
221
<span class="gp">...</span>
 
222
<span class="go">end</span>
 
223
</pre></div>
 
224
</div>
 
225
<p>The obvious use case is applications that operate in a non-blocking fashion
 
226
where the XML data is being received from a socket or read incrementally from
 
227
some storage device.  In such cases, blocking reads are unacceptable.</p>
 
228
<p>Because it&#8217;s so flexible, <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLPullParser</span></code></a> can be inconvenient to use for
 
229
simpler use-cases.  If you don&#8217;t mind your application blocking on reading XML
 
230
data but would still like to have incremental parsing capabilities, take a look
 
231
at <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">iterparse()</span></code></a>.  It can be useful when you&#8217;re reading a large XML document
 
232
and don&#8217;t want to hold it wholly in memory.</p>
 
233
</div>
 
234
<div class="section" id="finding-interesting-elements">
 
235
<h3>20.5.1.4. Finding interesting elements<a class="headerlink" href="#finding-interesting-elements" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
236
<p><a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> has some useful methods that help iterate recursively over all
 
237
the sub-tree below it (its children, their children, and so on).  For example,
 
238
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.iter()</span></code></a>:</p>
 
239
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">neighbor</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">iter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;neighbor&#39;</span><span class="p">):</span>
 
240
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">neighbor</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">attrib</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
241
<span class="gp">...</span>
 
242
<span class="go">{&#39;name&#39;: &#39;Austria&#39;, &#39;direction&#39;: &#39;E&#39;}</span>
 
243
<span class="go">{&#39;name&#39;: &#39;Switzerland&#39;, &#39;direction&#39;: &#39;W&#39;}</span>
 
244
<span class="go">{&#39;name&#39;: &#39;Malaysia&#39;, &#39;direction&#39;: &#39;N&#39;}</span>
 
245
<span class="go">{&#39;name&#39;: &#39;Costa Rica&#39;, &#39;direction&#39;: &#39;W&#39;}</span>
 
246
<span class="go">{&#39;name&#39;: &#39;Colombia&#39;, &#39;direction&#39;: &#39;E&#39;}</span>
 
247
</pre></div>
 
248
</div>
 
249
<p><a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.findall()</span></code></a> finds only elements with a tag which are direct
 
250
children of the current element.  <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.find()</span></code></a> finds the <em>first</em> child
 
251
with a particular tag, and <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.text</span></code></a> accesses the element&#8217;s text
 
252
content.  <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.get" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.get"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.get()</span></code></a> accesses the element&#8217;s attributes:</p>
 
253
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">country</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">findall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;country&#39;</span><span class="p">):</span>
 
254
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="n">rank</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">country</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;rank&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span>
 
255
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="n">name</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">country</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">get</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;name&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
256
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">name</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">rank</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
257
<span class="gp">...</span>
 
258
<span class="go">Liechtenstein 1</span>
 
259
<span class="go">Singapore 4</span>
 
260
<span class="go">Panama 68</span>
 
261
</pre></div>
 
262
</div>
 
263
<p>More sophisticated specification of which elements to look for is possible by
 
264
using <a class="reference internal" href="#elementtree-xpath"><span>XPath</span></a>.</p>
 
265
</div>
 
266
<div class="section" id="modifying-an-xml-file">
 
267
<h3>20.5.1.5. Modifying an XML File<a class="headerlink" href="#modifying-an-xml-file" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
268
<p><a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">ElementTree</span></code></a> provides a simple way to build XML documents and write them to files.
 
269
The <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">ElementTree.write()</span></code></a> method serves this purpose.</p>
 
270
<p>Once created, an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> object may be manipulated by directly changing
 
271
its fields (such as <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.text</span></code></a>), adding and modifying attributes
 
272
(<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.set" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.set"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.set()</span></code></a> method), as well as adding new children (for example
 
273
with <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.append" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.append"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.append()</span></code></a>).</p>
 
274
<p>Let&#8217;s say we want to add one to each country&#8217;s rank, and add an <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">updated</span></code>
 
275
attribute to the rank element:</p>
 
276
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">rank</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">iter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;rank&#39;</span><span class="p">):</span>
 
277
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="n">new_rank</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">int</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">rank</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="mi">1</span>
 
278
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="n">rank</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">new_rank</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
279
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="n">rank</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;updated&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">&#39;yes&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
280
<span class="gp">...</span>
 
281
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">write</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;output.xml&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
282
</pre></div>
 
283
</div>
 
284
<p>Our XML now looks like this:</p>
 
285
<div class="highlight-xml"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="cp">&lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;</span>
 
286
<span class="nt">&lt;data&gt;</span>
 
287
    <span class="nt">&lt;country</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Liechtenstein&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>
 
288
        <span class="nt">&lt;rank</span> <span class="na">updated=</span><span class="s">&quot;yes&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>2<span class="nt">&lt;/rank&gt;</span>
 
289
        <span class="nt">&lt;year&gt;</span>2008<span class="nt">&lt;/year&gt;</span>
 
290
        <span class="nt">&lt;gdppc&gt;</span>141100<span class="nt">&lt;/gdppc&gt;</span>
 
291
        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Austria&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;E&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
292
        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Switzerland&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;W&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
293
    <span class="nt">&lt;/country&gt;</span>
 
294
    <span class="nt">&lt;country</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Singapore&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>
 
295
        <span class="nt">&lt;rank</span> <span class="na">updated=</span><span class="s">&quot;yes&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>5<span class="nt">&lt;/rank&gt;</span>
 
296
        <span class="nt">&lt;year&gt;</span>2011<span class="nt">&lt;/year&gt;</span>
 
297
        <span class="nt">&lt;gdppc&gt;</span>59900<span class="nt">&lt;/gdppc&gt;</span>
 
298
        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Malaysia&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;N&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
299
    <span class="nt">&lt;/country&gt;</span>
 
300
    <span class="nt">&lt;country</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Panama&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>
 
301
        <span class="nt">&lt;rank</span> <span class="na">updated=</span><span class="s">&quot;yes&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>69<span class="nt">&lt;/rank&gt;</span>
 
302
        <span class="nt">&lt;year&gt;</span>2011<span class="nt">&lt;/year&gt;</span>
 
303
        <span class="nt">&lt;gdppc&gt;</span>13600<span class="nt">&lt;/gdppc&gt;</span>
 
304
        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Costa Rica&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;W&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
305
        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Colombia&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;E&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
306
    <span class="nt">&lt;/country&gt;</span>
 
307
<span class="nt">&lt;/data&gt;</span>
 
308
</pre></div>
 
309
</div>
 
310
<p>We can remove elements using <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.remove" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.remove"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.remove()</span></code></a>.  Let&#8217;s say we want to
 
311
remove all countries with a rank higher than 50:</p>
 
312
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">country</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">findall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;country&#39;</span><span class="p">):</span>
 
313
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="n">rank</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">int</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">country</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;rank&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
314
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">rank</span> <span class="o">&gt;</span> <span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">:</span>
 
315
<span class="gp">... </span>        <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">remove</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">country</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
316
<span class="gp">...</span>
 
317
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">write</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;output.xml&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
318
</pre></div>
 
319
</div>
 
320
<p>Our XML now looks like this:</p>
 
321
<div class="highlight-xml"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="cp">&lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;</span>
 
322
<span class="nt">&lt;data&gt;</span>
 
323
    <span class="nt">&lt;country</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Liechtenstein&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>
 
324
        <span class="nt">&lt;rank</span> <span class="na">updated=</span><span class="s">&quot;yes&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>2<span class="nt">&lt;/rank&gt;</span>
 
325
        <span class="nt">&lt;year&gt;</span>2008<span class="nt">&lt;/year&gt;</span>
 
326
        <span class="nt">&lt;gdppc&gt;</span>141100<span class="nt">&lt;/gdppc&gt;</span>
 
327
        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Austria&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;E&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
328
        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Switzerland&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;W&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
329
    <span class="nt">&lt;/country&gt;</span>
 
330
    <span class="nt">&lt;country</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Singapore&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>
 
331
        <span class="nt">&lt;rank</span> <span class="na">updated=</span><span class="s">&quot;yes&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>5<span class="nt">&lt;/rank&gt;</span>
 
332
        <span class="nt">&lt;year&gt;</span>2011<span class="nt">&lt;/year&gt;</span>
 
333
        <span class="nt">&lt;gdppc&gt;</span>59900<span class="nt">&lt;/gdppc&gt;</span>
 
334
        <span class="nt">&lt;neighbor</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">&quot;Malaysia&quot;</span> <span class="na">direction=</span><span class="s">&quot;N&quot;</span><span class="nt">/&gt;</span>
 
335
    <span class="nt">&lt;/country&gt;</span>
 
336
<span class="nt">&lt;/data&gt;</span>
 
337
</pre></div>
 
338
</div>
 
339
</div>
 
340
<div class="section" id="building-xml-documents">
 
341
<h3>20.5.1.6. Building XML documents<a class="headerlink" href="#building-xml-documents" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
342
<p>The <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">SubElement()</span></code></a> function also provides a convenient way to create new
 
343
sub-elements for a given element:</p>
 
344
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">a</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">ET</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">Element</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;a&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
345
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">b</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">ET</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">SubElement</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">&#39;b&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
346
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">c</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">ET</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">SubElement</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">&#39;c&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
347
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">d</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">ET</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">SubElement</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">c</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">&#39;d&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
348
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">ET</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">dump</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
349
<span class="go">&lt;a&gt;&lt;b /&gt;&lt;c&gt;&lt;d /&gt;&lt;/c&gt;&lt;/a&gt;</span>
 
350
</pre></div>
 
351
</div>
 
352
</div>
 
353
<div class="section" id="parsing-xml-with-namespaces">
 
354
<h3>20.5.1.7. Parsing XML with Namespaces<a class="headerlink" href="#parsing-xml-with-namespaces" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
355
<p>If the XML input has <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_namespace">namespaces</a>, tags and attributes
 
356
with prefixes in the form <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">prefix:sometag</span></code> get expanded to
 
357
<code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">{uri}sometag</span></code> where the <em>prefix</em> is replaced by the full <em>URI</em>.
 
358
Also, if there is a <a class="reference external" href="https://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-names-20060816/#defaulting">default namespace</a>,
 
359
that full URI gets prepended to all of the non-prefixed tags.</p>
 
360
<p>Here is an XML example that incorporates two namespaces, one with the
 
361
prefix &#8220;fictional&#8221; and the other serving as the default namespace:</p>
 
362
<div class="highlight-xml"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="cp">&lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;</span>
 
363
<span class="nt">&lt;actors</span> <span class="na">xmlns:fictional=</span><span class="s">&quot;http://characters.example.com&quot;</span>
 
364
        <span class="na">xmlns=</span><span class="s">&quot;http://people.example.com&quot;</span><span class="nt">&gt;</span>
 
365
    <span class="nt">&lt;actor&gt;</span>
 
366
        <span class="nt">&lt;name&gt;</span>John Cleese<span class="nt">&lt;/name&gt;</span>
 
367
        <span class="nt">&lt;fictional:character&gt;</span>Lancelot<span class="nt">&lt;/fictional:character&gt;</span>
 
368
        <span class="nt">&lt;fictional:character&gt;</span>Archie Leach<span class="nt">&lt;/fictional:character&gt;</span>
 
369
    <span class="nt">&lt;/actor&gt;</span>
 
370
    <span class="nt">&lt;actor&gt;</span>
 
371
        <span class="nt">&lt;name&gt;</span>Eric Idle<span class="nt">&lt;/name&gt;</span>
 
372
        <span class="nt">&lt;fictional:character&gt;</span>Sir Robin<span class="nt">&lt;/fictional:character&gt;</span>
 
373
        <span class="nt">&lt;fictional:character&gt;</span>Gunther<span class="nt">&lt;/fictional:character&gt;</span>
 
374
        <span class="nt">&lt;fictional:character&gt;</span>Commander Clement<span class="nt">&lt;/fictional:character&gt;</span>
 
375
    <span class="nt">&lt;/actor&gt;</span>
 
376
<span class="nt">&lt;/actors&gt;</span>
 
377
</pre></div>
 
378
</div>
 
379
<p>One way to search and explore this XML example is to manually add the
 
380
URI to every tag or attribute in the xpath of a
 
381
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">find()</span></code></a> or <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">findall()</span></code></a>:</p>
 
382
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">fromstring</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">xml_text</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
383
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">actor</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">findall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;{http://people.example.com}actor&#39;</span><span class="p">):</span>
 
384
    <span class="n">name</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">actor</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;{http://people.example.com}name&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
385
    <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">name</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
386
    <span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">char</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">actor</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">findall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;{http://characters.example.com}character&#39;</span><span class="p">):</span>
 
387
        <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39; |--&gt;&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">char</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
388
</pre></div>
 
389
</div>
 
390
<p>A better way to search the namespaced XML example is to create a
 
391
dictionary with your own prefixes and use those in the search functions:</p>
 
392
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">ns</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">&#39;real_person&#39;</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="s1">&#39;http://people.example.com&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span>
 
393
      <span class="s1">&#39;role&#39;</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="s1">&#39;http://characters.example.com&#39;</span><span class="p">}</span>
 
394
 
 
395
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">actor</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">findall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;real_person:actor&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">ns</span><span class="p">):</span>
 
396
    <span class="n">name</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">actor</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;real_person:name&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">ns</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
397
    <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">name</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
398
    <span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">char</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">actor</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">findall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;role:character&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">ns</span><span class="p">):</span>
 
399
        <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39; |--&gt;&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">char</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
400
</pre></div>
 
401
</div>
 
402
<p>These two approaches both output:</p>
 
403
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">John</span> <span class="n">Cleese</span>
 
404
 <span class="o">|--&gt;</span> <span class="n">Lancelot</span>
 
405
 <span class="o">|--&gt;</span> <span class="n">Archie</span> <span class="n">Leach</span>
 
406
<span class="n">Eric</span> <span class="n">Idle</span>
 
407
 <span class="o">|--&gt;</span> <span class="n">Sir</span> <span class="n">Robin</span>
 
408
 <span class="o">|--&gt;</span> <span class="n">Gunther</span>
 
409
 <span class="o">|--&gt;</span> <span class="n">Commander</span> <span class="n">Clement</span>
 
410
</pre></div>
 
411
</div>
 
412
</div>
 
413
<div class="section" id="additional-resources">
 
414
<h3>20.5.1.8. Additional resources<a class="headerlink" href="#additional-resources" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
415
<p>See <a class="reference external" href="http://effbot.org/zone/element-index.htm">http://effbot.org/zone/element-index.htm</a> for tutorials and links to other
 
416
docs.</p>
 
417
</div>
 
418
</div>
 
419
<div class="section" id="xpath-support">
 
420
<span id="elementtree-xpath"></span><h2>20.5.2. XPath support<a class="headerlink" href="#xpath-support" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
 
421
<p>This module provides limited support for
 
422
<a class="reference external" href="https://www.w3.org/TR/xpath">XPath expressions</a> for locating elements in a
 
423
tree.  The goal is to support a small subset of the abbreviated syntax; a full
 
424
XPath engine is outside the scope of the module.</p>
 
425
<div class="section" id="example">
 
426
<h3>20.5.2.1. Example<a class="headerlink" href="#example" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
427
<p>Here&#8217;s an example that demonstrates some of the XPath capabilities of the
 
428
module.  We&#8217;ll be using the <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">countrydata</span></code> XML document from the
 
429
<a class="reference internal" href="#elementtree-parsing-xml"><span>Parsing XML</span></a> section:</p>
 
430
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">xml.etree.ElementTree</span> <span class="k">as</span> <span class="nn">ET</span>
 
431
 
 
432
<span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">ET</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">fromstring</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">countrydata</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
433
 
 
434
<span class="c1"># Top-level elements</span>
 
435
<span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">findall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;.&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
436
 
 
437
<span class="c1"># All &#39;neighbor&#39; grand-children of &#39;country&#39; children of the top-level</span>
 
438
<span class="c1"># elements</span>
 
439
<span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">findall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;./country/neighbor&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
440
 
 
441
<span class="c1"># Nodes with name=&#39;Singapore&#39; that have a &#39;year&#39; child</span>
 
442
<span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">findall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;.//year/..[@name=&#39;Singapore&#39;]&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
443
 
 
444
<span class="c1"># &#39;year&#39; nodes that are children of nodes with name=&#39;Singapore&#39;</span>
 
445
<span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">findall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;.//*[@name=&#39;Singapore&#39;]/year&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
446
 
 
447
<span class="c1"># All &#39;neighbor&#39; nodes that are the second child of their parent</span>
 
448
<span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">findall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;.//neighbor[2]&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
449
</pre></div>
 
450
</div>
 
451
</div>
 
452
<div class="section" id="supported-xpath-syntax">
 
453
<h3>20.5.2.2. Supported XPath syntax<a class="headerlink" href="#supported-xpath-syntax" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
454
<table border="1" class="docutils">
 
455
<colgroup>
 
456
<col width="30%" />
 
457
<col width="70%" />
 
458
</colgroup>
 
459
<thead valign="bottom">
 
460
<tr class="row-odd"><th class="head">Syntax</th>
 
461
<th class="head">Meaning</th>
 
462
</tr>
 
463
</thead>
 
464
<tbody valign="top">
 
465
<tr class="row-even"><td><code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">tag</span></code></td>
 
466
<td>Selects all child elements with the given tag.
 
467
For example, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">spam</span></code> selects all child elements
 
468
named <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">spam</span></code>, and <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">spam/egg</span></code> selects all
 
469
grandchildren named <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">egg</span></code> in all children named
 
470
<code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">spam</span></code>.</td>
 
471
</tr>
 
472
<tr class="row-odd"><td><code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">*</span></code></td>
 
473
<td>Selects all child elements.  For example, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">*/egg</span></code>
 
474
selects all grandchildren named <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">egg</span></code>.</td>
 
475
</tr>
 
476
<tr class="row-even"><td><code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.</span></code></td>
 
477
<td>Selects the current node.  This is mostly useful
 
478
at the beginning of the path, to indicate that it&#8217;s
 
479
a relative path.</td>
 
480
</tr>
 
481
<tr class="row-odd"><td><code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">//</span></code></td>
 
482
<td>Selects all subelements, on all levels beneath the
 
483
current  element.  For example, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.//egg</span></code> selects
 
484
all <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">egg</span></code> elements in the entire tree.</td>
 
485
</tr>
 
486
<tr class="row-even"><td><code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">..</span></code></td>
 
487
<td>Selects the parent element.  Returns <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code> if the
 
488
path attempts to reach the ancestors of the start
 
489
element (the element <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">find</span></code> was called on).</td>
 
490
</tr>
 
491
<tr class="row-odd"><td><code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">[&#64;attrib]</span></code></td>
 
492
<td>Selects all elements that have the given attribute.</td>
 
493
</tr>
 
494
<tr class="row-even"><td><code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">[&#64;attrib='value']</span></code></td>
 
495
<td>Selects all elements for which the given attribute
 
496
has the given value.  The value cannot contain
 
497
quotes.</td>
 
498
</tr>
 
499
<tr class="row-odd"><td><code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">[tag]</span></code></td>
 
500
<td>Selects all elements that have a child named
 
501
<code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">tag</span></code>.  Only immediate children are supported.</td>
 
502
</tr>
 
503
<tr class="row-even"><td><code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">[tag='text']</span></code></td>
 
504
<td>Selects all elements that have a child named
 
505
<code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">tag</span></code> whose complete text content, including
 
506
descendants, equals the given <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">text</span></code>.</td>
 
507
</tr>
 
508
<tr class="row-odd"><td><code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">[position]</span></code></td>
 
509
<td>Selects all elements that are located at the given
 
510
position.  The position can be either an integer
 
511
(1 is the first position), the expression <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">last()</span></code>
 
512
(for the last position), or a position relative to
 
513
the last position (e.g. <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">last()-1</span></code>).</td>
 
514
</tr>
 
515
</tbody>
 
516
</table>
 
517
<p>Predicates (expressions within square brackets) must be preceded by a tag
 
518
name, an asterisk, or another predicate.  <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">position</span></code> predicates must be
 
519
preceded by a tag name.</p>
 
520
</div>
 
521
</div>
 
522
<div class="section" id="reference">
 
523
<h2>20.5.3. Reference<a class="headerlink" href="#reference" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
 
524
<div class="section" id="functions">
 
525
<span id="elementtree-functions"></span><h3>20.5.3.1. Functions<a class="headerlink" href="#functions" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
526
<dl class="function">
 
527
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Comment">
 
528
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">Comment</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Comment" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
529
<dd><p>Comment element factory.  This factory function creates a special element
 
530
that will be serialized as an XML comment by the standard serializer.  The
 
531
comment string can be either a bytestring or a Unicode string.  <em>text</em> is a
 
532
string containing the comment string.  Returns an element instance
 
533
representing a comment.</p>
 
534
<p>Note that <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a> skips over comments in the input
 
535
instead of creating comment objects for them. An <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">ElementTree</span></code></a> will
 
536
only contain comment nodes if they have been inserted into to
 
537
the tree using one of the <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> methods.</p>
 
538
</dd></dl>
 
539
 
 
540
<dl class="function">
 
541
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.dump">
 
542
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">dump</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>elem</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.dump" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
543
<dd><p>Writes an element tree or element structure to sys.stdout.  This function
 
544
should be used for debugging only.</p>
 
545
<p>The exact output format is implementation dependent.  In this version, it&#8217;s
 
546
written as an ordinary XML file.</p>
 
547
<p><em>elem</em> is an element tree or an individual element.</p>
 
548
</dd></dl>
 
549
 
 
550
<dl class="function">
 
551
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring">
 
552
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">fromstring</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
553
<dd><p>Parses an XML section from a string constant.  Same as <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XML" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XML"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">XML()</span></code></a>.  <em>text</em>
 
554
is a string containing XML data.  Returns an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> instance.</p>
 
555
</dd></dl>
 
556
 
 
557
<dl class="function">
 
558
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstringlist">
 
559
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">fromstringlist</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>sequence</em>, <em>parser=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstringlist" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
560
<dd><p>Parses an XML document from a sequence of string fragments.  <em>sequence</em> is a
 
561
list or other sequence containing XML data fragments.  <em>parser</em> is an
 
562
optional parser instance.  If not given, the standard <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a>
 
563
parser is used.  Returns an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> instance.</p>
 
564
<div class="versionadded">
 
565
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.2.</span></p>
 
566
</div>
 
567
</dd></dl>
 
568
 
 
569
<dl class="function">
 
570
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.iselement">
 
571
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">iselement</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>element</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.iselement" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
572
<dd><p>Checks if an object appears to be a valid element object.  <em>element</em> is an
 
573
element instance.  Returns a true value if this is an element object.</p>
 
574
</dd></dl>
 
575
 
 
576
<dl class="function">
 
577
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse">
 
578
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">iterparse</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>source</em>, <em>events=None</em>, <em>parser=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
579
<dd><p>Parses an XML section into an element tree incrementally, and reports what&#8217;s
 
580
going on to the user.  <em>source</em> is a filename or <a class="reference internal" href="../glossary.html#term-file-object"><span class="xref std std-term">file object</span></a>
 
581
containing XML data.  <em>events</em> is a sequence of events to report back.  The
 
582
supported events are the strings <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;start&quot;</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;end&quot;</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;start-ns&quot;</span></code> and
 
583
<code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;end-ns&quot;</span></code> (the &#8220;ns&#8221; events are used to get detailed namespace
 
584
information).  If <em>events</em> is omitted, only <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;end&quot;</span></code> events are reported.
 
585
<em>parser</em> is an optional parser instance.  If not given, the standard
 
586
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a> parser is used.  <em>parser</em> must be a subclass of
 
587
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a> and can only use the default <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">TreeBuilder</span></code></a> as a
 
588
target.  Returns an <a class="reference internal" href="../glossary.html#term-iterator"><span class="xref std std-term">iterator</span></a> providing <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">(event,</span> <span class="pre">elem)</span></code> pairs.</p>
 
589
<p>Note that while <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">iterparse()</span></code></a> builds the tree incrementally, it issues
 
590
blocking reads on <em>source</em> (or the file it names).  As such, it&#8217;s unsuitable
 
591
for applications where blocking reads can&#8217;t be made.  For fully non-blocking
 
592
parsing, see <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLPullParser</span></code></a>.</p>
 
593
<div class="admonition note">
 
594
<p class="first admonition-title">Note</p>
 
595
<p><a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">iterparse()</span></code></a> only guarantees that it has seen the &#8220;&gt;&#8221; character of a
 
596
starting tag when it emits a &#8220;start&#8221; event, so the attributes are defined,
 
597
but the contents of the text and tail attributes are undefined at that
 
598
point.  The same applies to the element children; they may or may not be
 
599
present.</p>
 
600
<p class="last">If you need a fully populated element, look for &#8220;end&#8221; events instead.</p>
 
601
</div>
 
602
<div class="deprecated">
 
603
<p><span class="versionmodified">Deprecated since version 3.4: </span>The <em>parser</em> argument.</p>
 
604
</div>
 
605
</dd></dl>
 
606
 
 
607
<dl class="function">
 
608
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.parse">
 
609
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">parse</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>source</em>, <em>parser=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.parse" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
610
<dd><p>Parses an XML section into an element tree.  <em>source</em> is a filename or file
 
611
object containing XML data.  <em>parser</em> is an optional parser instance.  If
 
612
not given, the standard <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a> parser is used.  Returns an
 
613
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">ElementTree</span></code></a> instance.</p>
 
614
</dd></dl>
 
615
 
 
616
<dl class="function">
 
617
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ProcessingInstruction">
 
618
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">ProcessingInstruction</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>target</em>, <em>text=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ProcessingInstruction" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
619
<dd><p>PI element factory.  This factory function creates a special element that
 
620
will be serialized as an XML processing instruction.  <em>target</em> is a string
 
621
containing the PI target.  <em>text</em> is a string containing the PI contents, if
 
622
given.  Returns an element instance, representing a processing instruction.</p>
 
623
<p>Note that <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a> skips over processing instructions
 
624
in the input instead of creating comment objects for them. An
 
625
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">ElementTree</span></code></a> will only contain processing instruction nodes if
 
626
they have been inserted into to the tree using one of the
 
627
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> methods.</p>
 
628
</dd></dl>
 
629
 
 
630
<dl class="function">
 
631
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.register_namespace">
 
632
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">register_namespace</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>prefix</em>, <em>uri</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.register_namespace" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
633
<dd><p>Registers a namespace prefix.  The registry is global, and any existing
 
634
mapping for either the given prefix or the namespace URI will be removed.
 
635
<em>prefix</em> is a namespace prefix.  <em>uri</em> is a namespace uri.  Tags and
 
636
attributes in this namespace will be serialized with the given prefix, if at
 
637
all possible.</p>
 
638
<div class="versionadded">
 
639
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.2.</span></p>
 
640
</div>
 
641
</dd></dl>
 
642
 
 
643
<dl class="function">
 
644
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement">
 
645
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">SubElement</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>parent</em>, <em>tag</em>, <em>attrib={}</em>, <em>**extra</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
646
<dd><p>Subelement factory.  This function creates an element instance, and appends
 
647
it to an existing element.</p>
 
648
<p>The element name, attribute names, and attribute values can be either
 
649
bytestrings or Unicode strings.  <em>parent</em> is the parent element.  <em>tag</em> is
 
650
the subelement name.  <em>attrib</em> is an optional dictionary, containing element
 
651
attributes.  <em>extra</em> contains additional attributes, given as keyword
 
652
arguments.  Returns an element instance.</p>
 
653
</dd></dl>
 
654
 
 
655
<dl class="function">
 
656
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.tostring">
 
657
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">tostring</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>element</em>, <em>encoding=&quot;us-ascii&quot;</em>, <em>method=&quot;xml&quot;</em>, <em>*</em>, <em>short_empty_elements=True</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.tostring" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
658
<dd><p>Generates a string representation of an XML element, including all
 
659
subelements.  <em>element</em> is an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> instance.  <em>encoding</em> <a class="footnote-reference" href="#id5" id="id1">[1]</a> is
 
660
the output encoding (default is US-ASCII).  Use <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">encoding=&quot;unicode&quot;</span></code> to
 
661
generate a Unicode string (otherwise, a bytestring is generated).  <em>method</em>
 
662
is either <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;xml&quot;</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;html&quot;</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;text&quot;</span></code> (default is <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;xml&quot;</span></code>).
 
663
<em>short_empty_elements</em> has the same meaning as in <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">ElementTree.write()</span></code></a>.
 
664
Returns an (optionally) encoded string containing the XML data.</p>
 
665
<div class="versionadded">
 
666
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.4: </span>The <em>short_empty_elements</em> parameter.</p>
 
667
</div>
 
668
</dd></dl>
 
669
 
 
670
<dl class="function">
 
671
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.tostringlist">
 
672
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">tostringlist</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>element</em>, <em>encoding=&quot;us-ascii&quot;</em>, <em>method=&quot;xml&quot;</em>, <em>*</em>, <em>short_empty_elements=True</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.tostringlist" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
673
<dd><p>Generates a string representation of an XML element, including all
 
674
subelements.  <em>element</em> is an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> instance.  <em>encoding</em> <a class="footnote-reference" href="#id5" id="id2">[1]</a> is
 
675
the output encoding (default is US-ASCII).  Use <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">encoding=&quot;unicode&quot;</span></code> to
 
676
generate a Unicode string (otherwise, a bytestring is generated).  <em>method</em>
 
677
is either <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;xml&quot;</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;html&quot;</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;text&quot;</span></code> (default is <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;xml&quot;</span></code>).
 
678
<em>short_empty_elements</em> has the same meaning as in <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">ElementTree.write()</span></code></a>.
 
679
Returns a list of (optionally) encoded strings containing the XML data.
 
680
It does not guarantee any specific sequence, except that
 
681
<code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">b&quot;&quot;.join(tostringlist(element))</span> <span class="pre">==</span> <span class="pre">tostring(element)</span></code>.</p>
 
682
<div class="versionadded">
 
683
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.2.</span></p>
 
684
</div>
 
685
<div class="versionadded">
 
686
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.4: </span>The <em>short_empty_elements</em> parameter.</p>
 
687
</div>
 
688
</dd></dl>
 
689
 
 
690
<dl class="function">
 
691
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.XML">
 
692
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">XML</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text</em>, <em>parser=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XML" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
693
<dd><p>Parses an XML section from a string constant.  This function can be used to
 
694
embed &#8220;XML literals&#8221; in Python code.  <em>text</em> is a string containing XML
 
695
data.  <em>parser</em> is an optional parser instance.  If not given, the standard
 
696
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a> parser is used.  Returns an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> instance.</p>
 
697
</dd></dl>
 
698
 
 
699
<dl class="function">
 
700
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLID">
 
701
<code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">XMLID</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text</em>, <em>parser=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLID" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
702
<dd><p>Parses an XML section from a string constant, and also returns a dictionary
 
703
which maps from element id:s to elements.  <em>text</em> is a string containing XML
 
704
data.  <em>parser</em> is an optional parser instance.  If not given, the standard
 
705
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a> parser is used.  Returns a tuple containing an
 
706
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> instance and a dictionary.</p>
 
707
</dd></dl>
 
708
 
 
709
</div>
 
710
<div class="section" id="element-objects">
 
711
<span id="elementtree-element-objects"></span><h3>20.5.3.2. Element Objects<a class="headerlink" href="#element-objects" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
712
<dl class="class">
 
713
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element">
 
714
<em class="property">class </em><code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">Element</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>tag</em>, <em>attrib={}</em>, <em>**extra</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
715
<dd><p>Element class.  This class defines the Element interface, and provides a
 
716
reference implementation of this interface.</p>
 
717
<p>The element name, attribute names, and attribute values can be either
 
718
bytestrings or Unicode strings.  <em>tag</em> is the element name.  <em>attrib</em> is
 
719
an optional dictionary, containing element attributes.  <em>extra</em> contains
 
720
additional attributes, given as keyword arguments.</p>
 
721
<dl class="attribute">
 
722
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.tag">
 
723
<code class="descname">tag</code><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.tag" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
724
<dd><p>A string identifying what kind of data this element represents (the
 
725
element type, in other words).</p>
 
726
</dd></dl>
 
727
 
 
728
<dl class="attribute">
 
729
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text">
 
730
<code class="descname">text</code><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
731
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.tail">
 
732
<code class="descname">tail</code><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.tail" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
733
<dd><p>These attributes can be used to hold additional data associated with
 
734
the element.  Their values are usually strings but may be any
 
735
application-specific object.  If the element is created from
 
736
an XML file, the <em>text</em> attribute holds either the text between
 
737
the element&#8217;s start tag and its first child or end tag, or <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code>, and
 
738
the <em>tail</em> attribute holds either the text between the element&#8217;s
 
739
end tag and the next tag, or <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code>.  For the XML data</p>
 
740
<div class="highlight-xml"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="nt">&lt;a&gt;&lt;b&gt;</span>1<span class="nt">&lt;c&gt;</span>2<span class="nt">&lt;d/&gt;</span>3<span class="nt">&lt;/c&gt;&lt;/b&gt;</span>4<span class="nt">&lt;/a&gt;</span>
 
741
</pre></div>
 
742
</div>
 
743
<p>the <em>a</em> element has <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code> for both <em>text</em> and <em>tail</em> attributes,
 
744
the <em>b</em> element has <em>text</em> <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;1&quot;</span></code> and <em>tail</em> <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;4&quot;</span></code>,
 
745
the <em>c</em> element has <em>text</em> <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;2&quot;</span></code> and <em>tail</em> <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code>,
 
746
and the <em>d</em> element has <em>text</em> <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code> and <em>tail</em> <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;3&quot;</span></code>.</p>
 
747
<p>To collect the inner text of an element, see <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.itertext" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.itertext"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">itertext()</span></code></a>, for
 
748
example <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;&quot;.join(element.itertext())</span></code>.</p>
 
749
<p>Applications may store arbitrary objects in these attributes.</p>
 
750
</dd></dl>
 
751
 
 
752
<dl class="attribute">
 
753
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.attrib">
 
754
<code class="descname">attrib</code><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.attrib" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
755
<dd><p>A dictionary containing the element&#8217;s attributes.  Note that while the
 
756
<em>attrib</em> value is always a real mutable Python dictionary, an ElementTree
 
757
implementation may choose to use another internal representation, and
 
758
create the dictionary only if someone asks for it.  To take advantage of
 
759
such implementations, use the dictionary methods below whenever possible.</p>
 
760
</dd></dl>
 
761
 
 
762
<p>The following dictionary-like methods work on the element attributes.</p>
 
763
<dl class="method">
 
764
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.clear">
 
765
<code class="descname">clear</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.clear" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
766
<dd><p>Resets an element.  This function removes all subelements, clears all
 
767
attributes, and sets the text and tail attributes to <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code>.</p>
 
768
</dd></dl>
 
769
 
 
770
<dl class="method">
 
771
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.get">
 
772
<code class="descname">get</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>key</em>, <em>default=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.get" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
773
<dd><p>Gets the element attribute named <em>key</em>.</p>
 
774
<p>Returns the attribute value, or <em>default</em> if the attribute was not found.</p>
 
775
</dd></dl>
 
776
 
 
777
<dl class="method">
 
778
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.items">
 
779
<code class="descname">items</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.items" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
780
<dd><p>Returns the element attributes as a sequence of (name, value) pairs.  The
 
781
attributes are returned in an arbitrary order.</p>
 
782
</dd></dl>
 
783
 
 
784
<dl class="method">
 
785
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.keys">
 
786
<code class="descname">keys</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.keys" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
787
<dd><p>Returns the elements attribute names as a list.  The names are returned
 
788
in an arbitrary order.</p>
 
789
</dd></dl>
 
790
 
 
791
<dl class="method">
 
792
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.set">
 
793
<code class="descname">set</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>key</em>, <em>value</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.set" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
794
<dd><p>Set the attribute <em>key</em> on the element to <em>value</em>.</p>
 
795
</dd></dl>
 
796
 
 
797
<p>The following methods work on the element&#8217;s children (subelements).</p>
 
798
<dl class="method">
 
799
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.append">
 
800
<code class="descname">append</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>subelement</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.append" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
801
<dd><p>Adds the element <em>subelement</em> to the end of this element&#8217;s internal list
 
802
of subelements.  Raises <a class="reference internal" href="exceptions.html#TypeError" title="TypeError"><code class="xref py py-exc docutils literal"><span class="pre">TypeError</span></code></a> if <em>subelement</em> is not an
 
803
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a>.</p>
 
804
</dd></dl>
 
805
 
 
806
<dl class="method">
 
807
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.extend">
 
808
<code class="descname">extend</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>subelements</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.extend" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
809
<dd><p>Appends <em>subelements</em> from a sequence object with zero or more elements.
 
810
Raises <a class="reference internal" href="exceptions.html#TypeError" title="TypeError"><code class="xref py py-exc docutils literal"><span class="pre">TypeError</span></code></a> if a subelement is not an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a>.</p>
 
811
<div class="versionadded">
 
812
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.2.</span></p>
 
813
</div>
 
814
</dd></dl>
 
815
 
 
816
<dl class="method">
 
817
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find">
 
818
<code class="descname">find</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>match</em>, <em>namespaces=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
819
<dd><p>Finds the first subelement matching <em>match</em>.  <em>match</em> may be a tag name
 
820
or a <a class="reference internal" href="#elementtree-xpath"><span>path</span></a>.  Returns an element instance
 
821
or <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code>.  <em>namespaces</em> is an optional mapping from namespace prefix
 
822
to full name.</p>
 
823
</dd></dl>
 
824
 
 
825
<dl class="method">
 
826
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall">
 
827
<code class="descname">findall</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>match</em>, <em>namespaces=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
828
<dd><p>Finds all matching subelements, by tag name or
 
829
<a class="reference internal" href="#elementtree-xpath"><span>path</span></a>.  Returns a list containing all matching
 
830
elements in document order.  <em>namespaces</em> is an optional mapping from
 
831
namespace prefix to full name.</p>
 
832
</dd></dl>
 
833
 
 
834
<dl class="method">
 
835
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findtext">
 
836
<code class="descname">findtext</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>match</em>, <em>default=None</em>, <em>namespaces=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findtext" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
837
<dd><p>Finds text for the first subelement matching <em>match</em>.  <em>match</em> may be
 
838
a tag name or a <a class="reference internal" href="#elementtree-xpath"><span>path</span></a>.  Returns the text content
 
839
of the first matching element, or <em>default</em> if no element was found.
 
840
Note that if the matching element has no text content an empty string
 
841
is returned. <em>namespaces</em> is an optional mapping from namespace prefix
 
842
to full name.</p>
 
843
</dd></dl>
 
844
 
 
845
<dl class="method">
 
846
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.getchildren">
 
847
<code class="descname">getchildren</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.getchildren" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
848
<dd><div class="deprecated">
 
849
<p><span class="versionmodified">Deprecated since version 3.2: </span>Use <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">list(elem)</span></code> or iteration.</p>
 
850
</div>
 
851
</dd></dl>
 
852
 
 
853
<dl class="method">
 
854
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.getiterator">
 
855
<code class="descname">getiterator</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>tag=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.getiterator" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
856
<dd><div class="deprecated">
 
857
<p><span class="versionmodified">Deprecated since version 3.2: </span>Use method <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.iter()</span></code></a> instead.</p>
 
858
</div>
 
859
</dd></dl>
 
860
 
 
861
<dl class="method">
 
862
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.insert">
 
863
<code class="descname">insert</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>index</em>, <em>subelement</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.insert" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
864
<dd><p>Inserts <em>subelement</em> at the given position in this element.  Raises
 
865
<a class="reference internal" href="exceptions.html#TypeError" title="TypeError"><code class="xref py py-exc docutils literal"><span class="pre">TypeError</span></code></a> if <em>subelement</em> is not an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a>.</p>
 
866
</dd></dl>
 
867
 
 
868
<dl class="method">
 
869
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter">
 
870
<code class="descname">iter</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>tag=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
871
<dd><p>Creates a tree <a class="reference internal" href="../glossary.html#term-iterator"><span class="xref std std-term">iterator</span></a> with the current element as the root.
 
872
The iterator iterates over this element and all elements below it, in
 
873
document (depth first) order.  If <em>tag</em> is not <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'*'</span></code>, only
 
874
elements whose tag equals <em>tag</em> are returned from the iterator.  If the
 
875
tree structure is modified during iteration, the result is undefined.</p>
 
876
<div class="versionadded">
 
877
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.2.</span></p>
 
878
</div>
 
879
</dd></dl>
 
880
 
 
881
<dl class="method">
 
882
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iterfind">
 
883
<code class="descname">iterfind</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>match</em>, <em>namespaces=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iterfind" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
884
<dd><p>Finds all matching subelements, by tag name or
 
885
<a class="reference internal" href="#elementtree-xpath"><span>path</span></a>.  Returns an iterable yielding all
 
886
matching elements in document order. <em>namespaces</em> is an optional mapping
 
887
from namespace prefix to full name.</p>
 
888
<div class="versionadded">
 
889
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.2.</span></p>
 
890
</div>
 
891
</dd></dl>
 
892
 
 
893
<dl class="method">
 
894
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.itertext">
 
895
<code class="descname">itertext</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.itertext" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
896
<dd><p>Creates a text iterator.  The iterator loops over this element and all
 
897
subelements, in document order, and returns all inner text.</p>
 
898
<div class="versionadded">
 
899
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.2.</span></p>
 
900
</div>
 
901
</dd></dl>
 
902
 
 
903
<dl class="method">
 
904
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.makeelement">
 
905
<code class="descname">makeelement</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>tag</em>, <em>attrib</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.makeelement" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
906
<dd><p>Creates a new element object of the same type as this element.  Do not
 
907
call this method, use the <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">SubElement()</span></code></a> factory function instead.</p>
 
908
</dd></dl>
 
909
 
 
910
<dl class="method">
 
911
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.remove">
 
912
<code class="descname">remove</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>subelement</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.remove" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
913
<dd><p>Removes <em>subelement</em> from the element.  Unlike the find* methods this
 
914
method compares elements based on the instance identity, not on tag value
 
915
or contents.</p>
 
916
</dd></dl>
 
917
 
 
918
<p><a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> objects also support the following sequence type methods
 
919
for working with subelements: <a class="reference internal" href="../reference/datamodel.html#object.__delitem__" title="object.__delitem__"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">__delitem__()</span></code></a>,
 
920
<a class="reference internal" href="../reference/datamodel.html#object.__getitem__" title="object.__getitem__"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">__getitem__()</span></code></a>, <a class="reference internal" href="../reference/datamodel.html#object.__setitem__" title="object.__setitem__"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">__setitem__()</span></code></a>,
 
921
<a class="reference internal" href="../reference/datamodel.html#object.__len__" title="object.__len__"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">__len__()</span></code></a>.</p>
 
922
<p>Caution: Elements with no subelements will test as <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">False</span></code>.  This behavior
 
923
will change in future versions.  Use specific <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">len(elem)</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">elem</span> <span class="pre">is</span>
 
924
<span class="pre">None</span></code> test instead.</p>
 
925
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">element</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;foo&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
926
 
 
927
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="ow">not</span> <span class="n">element</span><span class="p">:</span>  <span class="c1"># careful!</span>
 
928
    <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;element not found, or element has no subelements&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
929
 
 
930
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">element</span> <span class="ow">is</span> <span class="kc">None</span><span class="p">:</span>
 
931
    <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;element not found&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
932
</pre></div>
 
933
</div>
 
934
</dd></dl>
 
935
 
 
936
</div>
 
937
<div class="section" id="elementtree-objects">
 
938
<span id="elementtree-elementtree-objects"></span><h3>20.5.3.3. ElementTree Objects<a class="headerlink" href="#elementtree-objects" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
939
<dl class="class">
 
940
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree">
 
941
<em class="property">class </em><code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">ElementTree</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>element=None</em>, <em>file=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
942
<dd><p>ElementTree wrapper class.  This class represents an entire element
 
943
hierarchy, and adds some extra support for serialization to and from
 
944
standard XML.</p>
 
945
<p><em>element</em> is the root element.  The tree is initialized with the contents
 
946
of the XML <em>file</em> if given.</p>
 
947
<dl class="method">
 
948
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree._setroot">
 
949
<code class="descname">_setroot</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>element</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree._setroot" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
950
<dd><p>Replaces the root element for this tree.  This discards the current
 
951
contents of the tree, and replaces it with the given element.  Use with
 
952
care.  <em>element</em> is an element instance.</p>
 
953
</dd></dl>
 
954
 
 
955
<dl class="method">
 
956
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.find">
 
957
<code class="descname">find</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>match</em>, <em>namespaces=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.find" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
958
<dd><p>Same as <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.find()</span></code></a>, starting at the root of the tree.</p>
 
959
</dd></dl>
 
960
 
 
961
<dl class="method">
 
962
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.findall">
 
963
<code class="descname">findall</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>match</em>, <em>namespaces=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.findall" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
964
<dd><p>Same as <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.findall()</span></code></a>, starting at the root of the tree.</p>
 
965
</dd></dl>
 
966
 
 
967
<dl class="method">
 
968
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.findtext">
 
969
<code class="descname">findtext</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>match</em>, <em>default=None</em>, <em>namespaces=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.findtext" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
970
<dd><p>Same as <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findtext" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findtext"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.findtext()</span></code></a>, starting at the root of the tree.</p>
 
971
</dd></dl>
 
972
 
 
973
<dl class="method">
 
974
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.getiterator">
 
975
<code class="descname">getiterator</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>tag=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.getiterator" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
976
<dd><div class="deprecated">
 
977
<p><span class="versionmodified">Deprecated since version 3.2: </span>Use method <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.iter" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.iter"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">ElementTree.iter()</span></code></a> instead.</p>
 
978
</div>
 
979
</dd></dl>
 
980
 
 
981
<dl class="method">
 
982
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.getroot">
 
983
<code class="descname">getroot</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.getroot" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
984
<dd><p>Returns the root element for this tree.</p>
 
985
</dd></dl>
 
986
 
 
987
<dl class="method">
 
988
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.iter">
 
989
<code class="descname">iter</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>tag=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.iter" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
990
<dd><p>Creates and returns a tree iterator for the root element.  The iterator
 
991
loops over all elements in this tree, in section order.  <em>tag</em> is the tag
 
992
to look for (default is to return all elements).</p>
 
993
</dd></dl>
 
994
 
 
995
<dl class="method">
 
996
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.iterfind">
 
997
<code class="descname">iterfind</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>match</em>, <em>namespaces=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.iterfind" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
998
<dd><p>Same as <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iterfind" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iterfind"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element.iterfind()</span></code></a>, starting at the root of the tree.</p>
 
999
<div class="versionadded">
 
1000
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.2.</span></p>
 
1001
</div>
 
1002
</dd></dl>
 
1003
 
 
1004
<dl class="method">
 
1005
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.parse">
 
1006
<code class="descname">parse</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>source</em>, <em>parser=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.parse" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1007
<dd><p>Loads an external XML section into this element tree.  <em>source</em> is a file
 
1008
name or <a class="reference internal" href="../glossary.html#term-file-object"><span class="xref std std-term">file object</span></a>.  <em>parser</em> is an optional parser instance.
 
1009
If not given, the standard <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a> parser is used.  Returns the
 
1010
section root element.</p>
 
1011
</dd></dl>
 
1012
 
 
1013
<dl class="method">
 
1014
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write">
 
1015
<code class="descname">write</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>file</em>, <em>encoding=&quot;us-ascii&quot;</em>, <em>xml_declaration=None</em>, <em>default_namespace=None</em>, <em>method=&quot;xml&quot;</em>, <em>*</em>, <em>short_empty_elements=True</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1016
<dd><p>Writes the element tree to a file, as XML.  <em>file</em> is a file name, or a
 
1017
<a class="reference internal" href="../glossary.html#term-file-object"><span class="xref std std-term">file object</span></a> opened for writing.  <em>encoding</em> <a class="footnote-reference" href="#id5" id="id3">[1]</a> is the output
 
1018
encoding (default is US-ASCII).
 
1019
<em>xml_declaration</em> controls if an XML declaration should be added to the
 
1020
file.  Use <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">False</span></code> for never, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">True</span></code> for always, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code>
 
1021
for only if not US-ASCII or UTF-8 or Unicode (default is <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code>).
 
1022
<em>default_namespace</em> sets the default XML namespace (for &#8220;xmlns&#8221;).
 
1023
<em>method</em> is either <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;xml&quot;</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;html&quot;</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;text&quot;</span></code> (default is
 
1024
<code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;xml&quot;</span></code>).
 
1025
The keyword-only <em>short_empty_elements</em> parameter controls the formatting
 
1026
of elements that contain no content.  If <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">True</span></code> (the default), they are
 
1027
emitted as a single self-closed tag, otherwise they are emitted as a pair
 
1028
of start/end tags.</p>
 
1029
<p>The output is either a string (<a class="reference internal" href="stdtypes.html#str" title="str"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">str</span></code></a>) or binary (<a class="reference internal" href="functions.html#bytes" title="bytes"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">bytes</span></code></a>).
 
1030
This is controlled by the <em>encoding</em> argument.  If <em>encoding</em> is
 
1031
<code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;unicode&quot;</span></code>, the output is a string; otherwise, it&#8217;s binary.  Note that
 
1032
this may conflict with the type of <em>file</em> if it&#8217;s an open
 
1033
<a class="reference internal" href="../glossary.html#term-file-object"><span class="xref std std-term">file object</span></a>; make sure you do not try to write a string to a
 
1034
binary stream and vice versa.</p>
 
1035
<div class="versionadded">
 
1036
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.4: </span>The <em>short_empty_elements</em> parameter.</p>
 
1037
</div>
 
1038
</dd></dl>
 
1039
 
 
1040
</dd></dl>
 
1041
 
 
1042
<p>This is the XML file that is going to be manipulated:</p>
 
1043
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="n">html</span><span class="o">&gt;</span>
 
1044
    <span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="n">head</span><span class="o">&gt;</span>
 
1045
        <span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="n">title</span><span class="o">&gt;</span><span class="n">Example</span> <span class="n">page</span><span class="o">&lt;/</span><span class="n">title</span><span class="o">&gt;</span>
 
1046
    <span class="o">&lt;/</span><span class="n">head</span><span class="o">&gt;</span>
 
1047
    <span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="n">body</span><span class="o">&gt;</span>
 
1048
        <span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="n">p</span><span class="o">&gt;</span><span class="n">Moved</span> <span class="n">to</span> <span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="n">a</span> <span class="n">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">&quot;http://example.org/&quot;</span><span class="o">&gt;</span><span class="n">example</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">org</span><span class="o">&lt;/</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="o">&gt;</span>
 
1049
        <span class="ow">or</span> <span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="n">a</span> <span class="n">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">&quot;http://example.com/&quot;</span><span class="o">&gt;</span><span class="n">example</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">com</span><span class="o">&lt;/</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="o">&gt;.&lt;/</span><span class="n">p</span><span class="o">&gt;</span>
 
1050
    <span class="o">&lt;/</span><span class="n">body</span><span class="o">&gt;</span>
 
1051
<span class="o">&lt;/</span><span class="n">html</span><span class="o">&gt;</span>
 
1052
</pre></div>
 
1053
</div>
 
1054
<p>Example of changing the attribute &#8220;target&#8221; of every link in first paragraph:</p>
 
1055
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">xml.etree.ElementTree</span> <span class="k">import</span> <span class="n">ElementTree</span>
 
1056
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">tree</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">ElementTree</span><span class="p">()</span>
 
1057
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">parse</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;index.xhtml&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
1058
<span class="go">&lt;Element &#39;html&#39; at 0xb77e6fac&gt;</span>
 
1059
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">p</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;body/p&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>     <span class="c1"># Finds first occurrence of tag p in body</span>
 
1060
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">p</span>
 
1061
<span class="go">&lt;Element &#39;p&#39; at 0xb77ec26c&gt;</span>
 
1062
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">links</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">list</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">p</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">iter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;a&quot;</span><span class="p">))</span>   <span class="c1"># Returns list of all links</span>
 
1063
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">links</span>
 
1064
<span class="go">[&lt;Element &#39;a&#39; at 0xb77ec2ac&gt;, &lt;Element &#39;a&#39; at 0xb77ec1cc&gt;]</span>
 
1065
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">i</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">links</span><span class="p">:</span>             <span class="c1"># Iterates through all found links</span>
 
1066
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="n">i</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">attrib</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s2">&quot;target&quot;</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">&quot;blank&quot;</span>
 
1067
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">write</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;output.xhtml&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
1068
</pre></div>
 
1069
</div>
 
1070
</div>
 
1071
<div class="section" id="qname-objects">
 
1072
<span id="elementtree-qname-objects"></span><h3>20.5.3.4. QName Objects<a class="headerlink" href="#qname-objects" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
1073
<dl class="class">
 
1074
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.QName">
 
1075
<em class="property">class </em><code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">QName</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text_or_uri</em>, <em>tag=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.QName" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1076
<dd><p>QName wrapper.  This can be used to wrap a QName attribute value, in order
 
1077
to get proper namespace handling on output.  <em>text_or_uri</em> is a string
 
1078
containing the QName value, in the form {uri}local, or, if the tag argument
 
1079
is given, the URI part of a QName.  If <em>tag</em> is given, the first argument is
 
1080
interpreted as a URI, and this argument is interpreted as a local name.
 
1081
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.QName" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.QName"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">QName</span></code></a> instances are opaque.</p>
 
1082
</dd></dl>
 
1083
 
 
1084
</div>
 
1085
<div class="section" id="treebuilder-objects">
 
1086
<span id="elementtree-treebuilder-objects"></span><h3>20.5.3.5. TreeBuilder Objects<a class="headerlink" href="#treebuilder-objects" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
1087
<dl class="class">
 
1088
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder">
 
1089
<em class="property">class </em><code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">TreeBuilder</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>element_factory=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1090
<dd><p>Generic element structure builder.  This builder converts a sequence of
 
1091
start, data, and end method calls to a well-formed element structure.  You
 
1092
can use this class to build an element structure using a custom XML parser,
 
1093
or a parser for some other XML-like format.  <em>element_factory</em>, when given,
 
1094
must be a callable accepting two positional arguments: a tag and
 
1095
a dict of attributes.  It is expected to return a new element instance.</p>
 
1096
<dl class="method">
 
1097
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.close">
 
1098
<code class="descname">close</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.close" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1099
<dd><p>Flushes the builder buffers, and returns the toplevel document
 
1100
element.  Returns an <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> instance.</p>
 
1101
</dd></dl>
 
1102
 
 
1103
<dl class="method">
 
1104
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.data">
 
1105
<code class="descname">data</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>data</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.data" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1106
<dd><p>Adds text to the current element.  <em>data</em> is a string.  This should be
 
1107
either a bytestring, or a Unicode string.</p>
 
1108
</dd></dl>
 
1109
 
 
1110
<dl class="method">
 
1111
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.end">
 
1112
<code class="descname">end</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>tag</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.end" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1113
<dd><p>Closes the current element.  <em>tag</em> is the element name.  Returns the
 
1114
closed element.</p>
 
1115
</dd></dl>
 
1116
 
 
1117
<dl class="method">
 
1118
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.start">
 
1119
<code class="descname">start</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>tag</em>, <em>attrs</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.start" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1120
<dd><p>Opens a new element.  <em>tag</em> is the element name.  <em>attrs</em> is a dictionary
 
1121
containing element attributes.  Returns the opened element.</p>
 
1122
</dd></dl>
 
1123
 
 
1124
<p>In addition, a custom <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">TreeBuilder</span></code></a> object can provide the
 
1125
following method:</p>
 
1126
<dl class="method">
 
1127
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.doctype">
 
1128
<code class="descname">doctype</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>name</em>, <em>pubid</em>, <em>system</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.doctype" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1129
<dd><p>Handles a doctype declaration.  <em>name</em> is the doctype name.  <em>pubid</em> is
 
1130
the public identifier.  <em>system</em> is the system identifier.  This method
 
1131
does not exist on the default <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">TreeBuilder</span></code></a> class.</p>
 
1132
<div class="versionadded">
 
1133
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.2.</span></p>
 
1134
</div>
 
1135
</dd></dl>
 
1136
 
 
1137
</dd></dl>
 
1138
 
 
1139
</div>
 
1140
<div class="section" id="xmlparser-objects">
 
1141
<span id="elementtree-xmlparser-objects"></span><h3>20.5.3.6. XMLParser Objects<a class="headerlink" href="#xmlparser-objects" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
1142
<dl class="class">
 
1143
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser">
 
1144
<em class="property">class </em><code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">XMLParser</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>html=0</em>, <em>target=None</em>, <em>encoding=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1145
<dd><p>This class is the low-level building block of the module.  It uses
 
1146
<a class="reference internal" href="pyexpat.html#module-xml.parsers.expat" title="xml.parsers.expat: An interface to the Expat non-validating XML parser."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">xml.parsers.expat</span></code></a> for efficient, event-based parsing of XML.  It can
 
1147
be fed XML data incrementally with the <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">feed()</span></code></a> method, and parsing
 
1148
events are translated to a push API - by invoking callbacks on the <em>target</em>
 
1149
object.  If <em>target</em> is omitted, the standard <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">TreeBuilder</span></code></a> is used.
 
1150
The <em>html</em> argument was historically used for backwards compatibility and is
 
1151
now deprecated.  If <em>encoding</em> <a class="footnote-reference" href="#id5" id="id4">[1]</a> is given, the value overrides the
 
1152
encoding specified in the XML file.</p>
 
1153
<div class="deprecated">
 
1154
<p><span class="versionmodified">Deprecated since version 3.4: </span>The <em>html</em> argument.  The remaining arguments should be passed via
 
1155
keyword to prepare for the removal of the <em>html</em> argument.</p>
 
1156
</div>
 
1157
<dl class="method">
 
1158
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close">
 
1159
<code class="descname">close</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1160
<dd><p>Finishes feeding data to the parser.  Returns the result of calling the
 
1161
<code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">close()</span></code> method of the <em>target</em> passed during construction; by default,
 
1162
this is the toplevel document element.</p>
 
1163
</dd></dl>
 
1164
 
 
1165
<dl class="method">
 
1166
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.doctype">
 
1167
<code class="descname">doctype</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>name</em>, <em>pubid</em>, <em>system</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.doctype" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1168
<dd><div class="deprecated">
 
1169
<p><span class="versionmodified">Deprecated since version 3.2: </span>Define the <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.doctype" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.doctype"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">TreeBuilder.doctype()</span></code></a> method on a custom TreeBuilder
 
1170
target.</p>
 
1171
</div>
 
1172
</dd></dl>
 
1173
 
 
1174
<dl class="method">
 
1175
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed">
 
1176
<code class="descname">feed</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>data</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1177
<dd><p>Feeds data to the parser.  <em>data</em> is encoded data.</p>
 
1178
</dd></dl>
 
1179
 
 
1180
<p><a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser.feed()</span></code></a> calls <em>target</em>&#8216;s <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">start(tag,</span> <span class="pre">attrs_dict)</span></code> method
 
1181
for each opening tag, its <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">end(tag)</span></code> method for each closing tag, and data
 
1182
is processed by method <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">data(data)</span></code>.  <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser.close()</span></code></a> calls
 
1183
<em>target</em>&#8216;s method <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">close()</span></code>. <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a> can be used not only for
 
1184
building a tree structure. This is an example of counting the maximum depth
 
1185
of an XML file:</p>
 
1186
<div class="highlight-python3"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">xml.etree.ElementTree</span> <span class="k">import</span> <span class="n">XMLParser</span>
 
1187
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="k">class</span> <span class="nc">MaxDepth</span><span class="p">:</span>                     <span class="c1"># The target object of the parser</span>
 
1188
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="n">maxDepth</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">0</span>
 
1189
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="n">depth</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">0</span>
 
1190
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">start</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">attrib</span><span class="p">):</span>   <span class="c1"># Called for each opening tag.</span>
 
1191
<span class="gp">... </span>        <span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">depth</span> <span class="o">+=</span> <span class="mi">1</span>
 
1192
<span class="gp">... </span>        <span class="k">if</span> <span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">depth</span> <span class="o">&gt;</span> <span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">maxDepth</span><span class="p">:</span>
 
1193
<span class="gp">... </span>            <span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">maxDepth</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">depth</span>
 
1194
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">end</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">):</span>             <span class="c1"># Called for each closing tag.</span>
 
1195
<span class="gp">... </span>        <span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">depth</span> <span class="o">-=</span> <span class="mi">1</span>
 
1196
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">data</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">data</span><span class="p">):</span>
 
1197
<span class="gp">... </span>        <span class="k">pass</span>            <span class="c1"># We do not need to do anything with data.</span>
 
1198
<span class="gp">... </span>    <span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">close</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">):</span>    <span class="c1"># Called when all data has been parsed.</span>
 
1199
<span class="gp">... </span>        <span class="k">return</span> <span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">maxDepth</span>
 
1200
<span class="gp">...</span>
 
1201
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">target</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">MaxDepth</span><span class="p">()</span>
 
1202
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">parser</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">XMLParser</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">target</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">target</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
1203
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">exampleXml</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">&quot;&quot;&quot;</span>
 
1204
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s2">&lt;a&gt;</span>
 
1205
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s2">  &lt;b&gt;</span>
 
1206
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s2">  &lt;/b&gt;</span>
 
1207
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s2">  &lt;b&gt;</span>
 
1208
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s2">    &lt;c&gt;</span>
 
1209
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s2">      &lt;d&gt;</span>
 
1210
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s2">      &lt;/d&gt;</span>
 
1211
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s2">    &lt;/c&gt;</span>
 
1212
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s2">  &lt;/b&gt;</span>
 
1213
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s2">&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&quot;&quot;</span>
 
1214
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">parser</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">feed</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">exampleXml</span><span class="p">)</span>
 
1215
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">parser</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">close</span><span class="p">()</span>
 
1216
<span class="go">4</span>
 
1217
</pre></div>
 
1218
</div>
 
1219
</dd></dl>
 
1220
 
 
1221
</div>
 
1222
<div class="section" id="xmlpullparser-objects">
 
1223
<span id="elementtree-xmlpullparser-objects"></span><h3>20.5.3.7. XMLPullParser Objects<a class="headerlink" href="#xmlpullparser-objects" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
1224
<dl class="class">
 
1225
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser">
 
1226
<em class="property">class </em><code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">XMLPullParser</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>events=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1227
<dd><p>A pull parser suitable for non-blocking applications.  Its input-side API is
 
1228
similar to that of <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser</span></code></a>, but instead of pushing calls to a
 
1229
callback target, <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLPullParser</span></code></a> collects an internal list of parsing
 
1230
events and lets the user read from it. <em>events</em> is a sequence of events to
 
1231
report back.  The supported events are the strings <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;start&quot;</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;end&quot;</span></code>,
 
1232
<code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;start-ns&quot;</span></code> and <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;end-ns&quot;</span></code> (the &#8220;ns&#8221; events are used to get detailed
 
1233
namespace information).  If <em>events</em> is omitted, only <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;end&quot;</span></code> events are
 
1234
reported.</p>
 
1235
<dl class="method">
 
1236
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.feed">
 
1237
<code class="descname">feed</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>data</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.feed" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1238
<dd><p>Feed the given bytes data to the parser.</p>
 
1239
</dd></dl>
 
1240
 
 
1241
<dl class="method">
 
1242
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.close">
 
1243
<code class="descname">close</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.close" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1244
<dd><p>Signal the parser that the data stream is terminated. Unlike
 
1245
<a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLParser.close()</span></code></a>, this method always returns <a class="reference internal" href="constants.html#None" title="None"><code class="xref py py-const docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></code></a>.
 
1246
Any events not yet retrieved when the parser is closed can still be
 
1247
read with <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">read_events()</span></code></a>.</p>
 
1248
</dd></dl>
 
1249
 
 
1250
<dl class="method">
 
1251
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events">
 
1252
<code class="descname">read_events</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1253
<dd><p>Return an iterator over the events which have been encountered in the
 
1254
data fed to the
 
1255
parser.  The iterator yields <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">(event,</span> <span class="pre">elem)</span></code> pairs, where <em>event</em> is a
 
1256
string representing the type of event (e.g. <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">&quot;end&quot;</span></code>) and <em>elem</em> is the
 
1257
encountered <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Element</span></code></a> object.</p>
 
1258
<p>Events provided in a previous call to <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">read_events()</span></code></a> will not be
 
1259
yielded again.  Events are consumed from the internal queue only when
 
1260
they are retrieved from the iterator, so multiple readers iterating in
 
1261
parallel over iterators obtained from <a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">read_events()</span></code></a> will have
 
1262
unpredictable results.</p>
 
1263
</dd></dl>
 
1264
 
 
1265
<div class="admonition note">
 
1266
<p class="first admonition-title">Note</p>
 
1267
<p><a class="reference internal" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser" title="xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">XMLPullParser</span></code></a> only guarantees that it has seen the &#8220;&gt;&#8221;
 
1268
character of a starting tag when it emits a &#8220;start&#8221; event, so the
 
1269
attributes are defined, but the contents of the text and tail attributes
 
1270
are undefined at that point.  The same applies to the element children;
 
1271
they may or may not be present.</p>
 
1272
<p class="last">If you need a fully populated element, look for &#8220;end&#8221; events instead.</p>
 
1273
</div>
 
1274
<div class="versionadded">
 
1275
<p><span class="versionmodified">New in version 3.4.</span></p>
 
1276
</div>
 
1277
</dd></dl>
 
1278
 
 
1279
</div>
 
1280
<div class="section" id="exceptions">
 
1281
<h3>20.5.3.8. Exceptions<a class="headerlink" href="#exceptions" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
 
1282
<dl class="class">
 
1283
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError">
 
1284
<em class="property">class </em><code class="descclassname">xml.etree.ElementTree.</code><code class="descname">ParseError</code><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1285
<dd><p>XML parse error, raised by the various parsing methods in this module when
 
1286
parsing fails.  The string representation of an instance of this exception
 
1287
will contain a user-friendly error message.  In addition, it will have
 
1288
the following attributes available:</p>
 
1289
<dl class="attribute">
 
1290
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError.code">
 
1291
<code class="descname">code</code><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError.code" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1292
<dd><p>A numeric error code from the expat parser. See the documentation of
 
1293
<a class="reference internal" href="pyexpat.html#module-xml.parsers.expat" title="xml.parsers.expat: An interface to the Expat non-validating XML parser."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">xml.parsers.expat</span></code></a> for the list of error codes and their meanings.</p>
 
1294
</dd></dl>
 
1295
 
 
1296
<dl class="attribute">
 
1297
<dt id="xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError.position">
 
1298
<code class="descname">position</code><a class="headerlink" href="#xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError.position" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
 
1299
<dd><p>A tuple of <em>line</em>, <em>column</em> numbers, specifying where the error occurred.</p>
 
1300
</dd></dl>
 
1301
 
 
1302
</dd></dl>
 
1303
 
 
1304
<p class="rubric">Footnotes</p>
 
1305
<table class="docutils footnote" frame="void" id="id5" rules="none">
 
1306
<colgroup><col class="label" /><col /></colgroup>
 
1307
<tbody valign="top">
 
1308
<tr><td class="label">[1]</td><td>The encoding string included in XML output should conform to the
 
1309
appropriate standards.  For example, &#8220;UTF-8&#8221; is valid, but &#8220;UTF8&#8221; is
 
1310
not.  See <a class="reference external" href="https://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#NT-EncodingDecl">https://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#NT-EncodingDecl</a>
 
1311
and <a class="reference external" href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets/character-sets.xhtml">https://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets/character-sets.xhtml</a>.</td></tr>
 
1312
</tbody>
 
1313
</table>
 
1314
</div>
 
1315
</div>
 
1316
</div>
 
1317
 
 
1318
 
 
1319
          </div>
 
1320
        </div>
 
1321
      </div>
 
1322
      <div class="sphinxsidebar" role="navigation" aria-label="main navigation">
 
1323
        <div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper">
 
1324
  <h3><a href="../contents.html">Table Of Contents</a></h3>
 
1325
  <ul>
 
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#">20.5. <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">xml.etree.ElementTree</span></code> &#8212; The ElementTree XML API</a><ul>
 
1327
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#tutorial">20.5.1. Tutorial</a><ul>
 
1328
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#xml-tree-and-elements">20.5.1.1. XML tree and elements</a></li>
 
1329
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#parsing-xml">20.5.1.2. Parsing XML</a></li>
 
1330
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#pull-api-for-non-blocking-parsing">20.5.1.3. Pull API for non-blocking parsing</a></li>
 
1331
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#finding-interesting-elements">20.5.1.4. Finding interesting elements</a></li>
 
1332
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#modifying-an-xml-file">20.5.1.5. Modifying an XML File</a></li>
 
1333
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#building-xml-documents">20.5.1.6. Building XML documents</a></li>
 
1334
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#parsing-xml-with-namespaces">20.5.1.7. Parsing XML with Namespaces</a></li>
 
1335
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#additional-resources">20.5.1.8. Additional resources</a></li>
 
1336
</ul>
 
1337
</li>
 
1338
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#xpath-support">20.5.2. XPath support</a><ul>
 
1339
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#example">20.5.2.1. Example</a></li>
 
1340
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#supported-xpath-syntax">20.5.2.2. Supported XPath syntax</a></li>
 
1341
</ul>
 
1342
</li>
 
1343
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#reference">20.5.3. Reference</a><ul>
 
1344
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#functions">20.5.3.1. Functions</a></li>
 
1345
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#element-objects">20.5.3.2. Element Objects</a></li>
 
1346
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#elementtree-objects">20.5.3.3. ElementTree Objects</a></li>
 
1347
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#qname-objects">20.5.3.4. QName Objects</a></li>
 
1348
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#treebuilder-objects">20.5.3.5. TreeBuilder Objects</a></li>
 
1349
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#xmlparser-objects">20.5.3.6. XMLParser Objects</a></li>
 
1350
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#xmlpullparser-objects">20.5.3.7. XMLPullParser Objects</a></li>
 
1351
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#exceptions">20.5.3.8. Exceptions</a></li>
 
1352
</ul>
 
1353
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1354
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1355
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1356
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1357
 
 
1358
  <h4>Previous topic</h4>
 
1359
  <p class="topless"><a href="xml.html"
 
1360
                        title="previous chapter">20.4. XML Processing Modules</a></p>
 
1361
  <h4>Next topic</h4>
 
1362
  <p class="topless"><a href="xml.dom.html"
 
1363
                        title="next chapter">20.6. <code class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">xml.dom</span></code> &#8212; The Document Object Model API</a></p>
 
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