How should I parse this xml string in python?

Question

My XML string is -

xmlData = """<SMSResponse xmlns="http://example.com" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
             <Cancelled>false</Cancelled>
             <MessageID>00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000</MessageID>  
             <Queued>false</Queued>
             <SMSError>NoError</SMSError>
             <SMSIncomingMessages i:nil="true"/>
             <Sent>false</Sent>
             <SentDateTime>0001-01-01T00:00:00</SentDateTime>
             </SMSResponse>"""

I am trying to parse and get the values of tags - Cancelled, MessageId, SMSError, etc. I am using python's Elementtree library. So far, I have tried things like -

root = ET.fromstring(xmlData)
print root.find('Sent')  // gives None
for child in root:
    print chil.find('MessageId') // also gives None

Although, I am able to print the tags with -

for child in root:
    print child.tag
    //child.tag for the tag Cancelled is - {http://example.com}Cancelled

and their respective values with -

for child in root:
    print child.text

How do I get something like -

print child.Queued // will print false

Like in PHP we can access them with the root -

$xml = simplexml_load_string($data);
$status = $xml->SMSError;

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-04 09:27:35Z

8

Your document has a namespace on it, you need to include the namespace when searching:

root = ET.fromstring(xmlData)
print root.find('{http://example.com}Sent',)
print root.find('{http://example.com}MessageID')

output:

<Element '{http://example.com}Sent' at 0x1043e0690>
<Element '{http://example.com}MessageID' at 0x1043e0350>

The find() and findall() methods also take a namespace map; you can search for a arbitrary prefix, and the prefix will be looked up in that map, to save typing:

nsmap = {'n': 'http://example.com'}
print root.find('n:Sent', namespaces=nsmap)
print root.find('n:MessageID', namespaces=nsmap)

edited Jan 4, 2013 at 9:27

answered Jan 4, 2013 at 9:14

Martijn Pieters

1.1m326 gold badges4.2k silver badges3.4k bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

9 Comments

Hussain Over a year ago

so basically I am gonna have to specify "{example.com}" every time I want to access the text of a tag?

Martijn Pieters Over a year ago

@HussainTamboli: There is also a namespaces=mapping argument to find and findall but that appears to be useless when there is a default namespace. lxml handles this all a lot better.

Hussain Over a year ago

See @eclaird's answer. I think you were trying to do the same. +1

Hussain Over a year ago

It still prints None with nsmap. I think there is something wrong with nsmap.

Martijn Pieters Over a year ago

@HussainTamboli: I get output for your sample XML. Make sure you spelled the tag name correctly (MessageID and not MessageId).

|

tuomur · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-04 09:22:38Z

3

If you're set on Python standard XML libraries, you could use something like this:

root = ET.fromstring(xmlData)
namespace = 'http://example.com'

def query(tree, nodename):
    return tree.find('{{{ex}}}{nodename}'.format(ex=namespace, nodename=nodename))

queued = query(root, 'Queued')
print queued.text

answered Jan 4, 2013 at 9:22

tuomur

7,15838 silver badges39 bronze badges

Comments

ATOzTOA · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-04 09:31:17Z

2

You can create a dictionary and directly get values out of it...

tree = ET.fromstring(xmlData)

root = {}

for child in tree:
    root[child.tag.split("}")[1]] = child.text

print root["Queued"]

edited Jan 4, 2013 at 9:31

answered Jan 4, 2013 at 9:05

ATOzTOA

36.1k23 gold badges101 silver badges119 bronze badges

5 Comments

Hussain Over a year ago

hi, see my edit. "//child.tag for the tag Cancelled is - {example.com}Cancelled" so it is difficult to match it with "Cancelled". Is there any better way?

Hussain Over a year ago

Hey. it works but this is just an adjustment. How do I access the text of the tags in a way where tag is a key and text is the value.

Hussain Over a year ago

Also you might wanna change the return null to return None or return ''. Because with null, it says - NameError: global name 'null' is not defined

Hussain Over a year ago

This maybe an alternate solution too. +1

ATOzTOA Over a year ago

Updated answer with a neater one.

root · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-04 09:46:04Z

2

With lxml.etree:

In [8]: import lxml.etree as et

In [9]: doc=et.fromstring(xmlData)

In [10]: ns={'n':'http://example.com'}

In [11]: doc.xpath('n:Queued/text()',namespaces=ns)
Out[11]: ['false']

With elementtree you can do:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET    
root=ET.fromstring(xmlData)    
ns={'n':'http://example.com'}
root.find('n:Queued',namespaces=ns).text
Out[13]: 'false'

edited Jan 4, 2013 at 9:46

answered Jan 4, 2013 at 9:35

root

81.1k25 gold badges111 silver badges120 bronze badges

1 Comment

Hussain Over a year ago

thanks. I was wondering to find something similar in ElementTree. +1

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How should I parse this xml string in python?

4 Answers 4

9 Comments

Comments

5 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

9 Comments

Comments

5 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related