Replacing attributes according to tag name on xml using elementtree and python

Question

I have xml file

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<data>
    <country name="Panama">
        <rank>1</rank>
        <year>2008</year>
        <gdppc>141100</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Austria" direction="E"/>
        <neighbor name="Switzerland" direction="W"/>
    </country>
    <country name="Malaysia">
        <rank>4</rank>
        <year>2011</year>
        <gdppc>59900</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Malaysia" direction="N"/>
    </country>
    <country name="Liechtenstein">
        <rank>68</rank>
        <year>2011</year>
        <gdppc>13600</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Costa Rica" direction="W"/>
        <neighbor name="Colombia" direction="E"/>
    </country>
</data>

I need to find all country tags check the text with the current position of my list of countries if they are not the same we replace the country name by the right name from my list. It should also create a log.txt file (this part is ok). For example, some names are not in order (Panama's neighbors are not Austri and Switzerland) so they need to be replaced and this is a long xml so I want to write a script that will do it automatically.

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
import os
from xml.etree.ElementTree import SubElement

base_path = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
xml_file = os.path.join(base_path, 'data.xml')
tree = ET.parse(xml_file)
root = tree.getroot()

Tags = ['country', 'rank', 'year']
right_data = ['Liechtenstein', 'Singapore', 'Panama']
# I need a log of the changes
f = open('Log.txt','w')

i =0
for tag in Tags[i:]:
    print tag
    for child in root.iter():
        print child
        if tag == child.tag:
            print 'We found matching tag %s' % tag
            if child.text != right_data[i]:
                print 'We are changing %s ' % child.text, 'to --> %s'% right_data[i]
                f.write('Changing  %s -->' % child.text)
                f.write('to name %s\n' % right_data[i])
                #This is where the problems start
                #This is supposed to find text attribute and replace it the    right_data[i] at position i
                #I get this error when I run my program
                #SyntaxError: can't assign to function call

                tree.find(child.text) = right_data[i]

        else: 
            "There is no such tag"
f.close()


new_data = ET.tostring(root)
new_xml = open('dataUpdated.xml', 'w')
new_xml.write(new_data)

I know I can replace text on xml file this way.

tree.find('Panama').text = 'Liechtenstein'
tree.write(datafile)

However when I pass a list (righ_data[] and child.text) as arguments it does not like it and it gives me the error described above.

some names are wrong ... what do you mean wrong? Wrongly spelled, ordered, present? I see your list is ['Liechtenstein', 'Singapore', 'Panama'], what is your desired output given the input you show. — Parfait
– Parfait, Commented Oct 26, 2018 at 21:03
Yes the xml has them in wrong order. The list I created has them in the right order. So the program checks for the name if the name matches the list at position i then it does not change anything and if it does not match it changes it. — Luis Martinez
– Luis Martinez, Commented Oct 26, 2018 at 21:06
Are you trying to change the order of the entire element, or just correct the names? — Sunny Patel
– Sunny Patel, Commented Oct 26, 2018 at 21:09
I just want to correct the names. I will do this with rank as well but if I can get this to work the rest will be pretty much the same. — Luis Martinez
– Luis Martinez, Commented Oct 26, 2018 at 21:11

Luis Martinez · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-02 23:22:41Z

1

I stopped using find() method. See below for how I solved the problem. Key and val are my dictionary.

customDict = {'Soap':'Dial', 'Shampoo': 'H&S'}

for child in root.iter():
     for key, val customDict.items():
         if child.tag == key:
              child.tex = val

This will find the tag, check that it is the right tag and modify it accordingly.

answered Nov 2, 2018 at 23:22

Luis Martinez

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