xml.etree.ElementTree --- ElementTree XML API

源代码： Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py

---

xml.etree.ElementTree 模块实现了一个简单高效的API，用于解析和创建XML数据。

在 3.3 版更改: This module will use a fast implementation whenever available.

3.3 版后已移除: The xml.etree.cElementTree module is deprecated.

警告

xml.etree.ElementTree 模块对于恶意构建的数据是不安全的。如果需要解析不可信或未经身份验证的数据，请参见 XML 漏洞 。

教程

这是一个使用 xml.etree.ElementTree （简称 ET ）的简短教程。目标是演示模块的一些构建块和基本概念。

XML树和元素

XML是一种固有的分层数据格式，最自然的表示方法是使用树。为此， ET 有两个类： ElementTree 将整个XML文档表示为一个树， Element 表示该树中的单个节点。与整个文档的交互（读写文件）通常在 ElementTree 级别完成。与单个XML元素及其子元素的交互是在 Element 级别完成的。

解析XML

我们将使用以下XML文档作为本节的示例数据：

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

可以通过从文件中读取来导入此数据：

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
tree = ET.parse('country_data.xml')
root = tree.getroot()

或直接从字符串中解析：

root = ET.fromstring(country_data_as_string)

fromstring() 将XML从字符串直接解析为 Element ，该元素是已解析树的根元素。其他解析函数可能会创建一个 ElementTree 。确切信息请查阅文档。

作为 Element ， root 具有标签和属性字典:

>>> root.tag
'data'
>>> root.attrib
{}

还有可以迭代的子节点：

>>> for child in root:
...     print(child.tag, child.attrib)
...
country {'name': 'Liechtenstein'}
country {'name': 'Singapore'}
country {'name': 'Panama'}

子级是可以嵌套的，我们可以通过索引访问特定的子级节点：

>>> root[0][1].text
'2008'

注解

并非XML输入的所有元素都将作为解析树的元素结束。目前，此模块跳过输入中的任何XML注释、处理指令和文档类型声明。然而，使用这个模块的API而不是从XML文本解析构建的树可以包含注释和处理指令，生成XML输出时同样包含这些注释和处理指令。可以通过将自定义 TreeBuilder 实例传递给 XMLParser 构造函数来访问文档类型声明。

Pull API进行非阻塞解析

Most parsing functions provided by this module require the whole document to be read at once before returning any result. It is possible to use an XMLParser and feed data into it incrementally, but it is a push API that calls methods on a callback target, which is too low-level and inconvenient for most needs. Sometimes what the user really wants is to be able to parse XML incrementally, without blocking operations, while enjoying the convenience of fully constructed Element objects.

The most powerful tool for doing this is XMLPullParser. It does not require a blocking read to obtain the XML data, and is instead fed with data incrementally with XMLPullParser.feed() calls. To get the parsed XML elements, call XMLPullParser.read_events(). Here is an example:

>>> parser = ET.XMLPullParser(['start', 'end'])
>>> parser.feed('<mytag>sometext')
>>> list(parser.read_events())
[('start', <Element 'mytag' at 0x7fa66db2be58>)]
>>> parser.feed(' more text</mytag>')
>>> for event, elem in parser.read_events():
...     print(event)
...     print(elem.tag, 'text=', elem.text)
...
end

The obvious use case is applications that operate in a non-blocking fashion where the XML data is being received from a socket or read incrementally from some storage device. In such cases, blocking reads are unacceptable.

Because it's so flexible, XMLPullParser can be inconvenient to use for simpler use-cases. If you don't mind your application blocking on reading XML data but would still like to have incremental parsing capabilities, take a look at iterparse(). It can be useful when you're reading a large XML document and don't want to hold it wholly in memory.

查找感兴趣的元素

Element 有一些很有效的方法，可帮助递归遍历其下的所有子树（包括子级，子级的子级，等等）。例如 Element.iter():

>>> for neighbor in root.iter('neighbor'):
...     print(neighbor.attrib)
...
{'name': 'Austria', 'direction': 'E'}
{'name': 'Switzerland', 'direction': 'W'}
{'name': 'Malaysia', 'direction': 'N'}
{'name': 'Costa Rica', 'direction': 'W'}
{'name': 'Colombia', 'direction': 'E'}

Element.findall() 仅查找当前元素的直接子元素中带有指定标签的元素。 Element.find() 找带有特定标签的 第一个 子级，然后可以用 Element.text 访问元素的文本内容。 Element.get 访问元素的属性:

>>> for country in root.findall('country'):
...     rank = country.find('rank').text
...     name = country.get('name')
...     print(name, rank)
...
Liechtenstein 1
Singapore 4
Panama 68

通过使用 XPath ，可以更精确地指定要查找的元素。

修改XML文件

ElementTree 提供了一种构建XML文档并将其写入文件的简单方法。调用 ElementTree.write() 方法就可以实现。

创建后可以直接操作 Element 对象。例如：使用 Element.text 修改文本字段，使用 Element.set() 方法添加和修改属性，以及使用 Element.append() 添加新的子元素。

假设我们要为每个国家/地区的中添加一个排名，并在排名元素中添加一个 updated 属性：

>>> for rank in root.iter('rank'):
...     new_rank = int(rank.text) + 1
...     rank.text = str(new_rank)
...     rank.set('updated', 'yes')
...
>>> tree.write('output.xml')

生成的XML现在看起来像这样：

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<data>
    <country name="Liechtenstein">
        <rank updated="yes">2</rank>
        <year>2008</year>
        <gdppc>141100</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Austria" direction="E"/>
        <neighbor name="Switzerland" direction="W"/>
    </country>
    <country name="Singapore">
        <rank updated="yes">5</rank>
        <year>2011</year>
        <gdppc>59900</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Malaysia" direction="N"/>
    </country>
    <country name="Panama">
        <rank updated="yes">69</rank>
        <year>2011</year>
        <gdppc>13600</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Costa Rica" direction="W"/>
        <neighbor name="Colombia" direction="E"/>
    </country>
</data>

可以使用 Element.remove() 删除元素。假设我们要删除排名高于50的所有国家/地区:

>>> for country in root.findall('country'):
...     # using root.findall() to avoid removal during traversal
...     rank = int(country.find('rank').text)
...     if rank > 50:
...         root.remove(country)
...
>>> tree.write('output.xml')

Note that concurrent modification while iterating can lead to problems, just like when iterating and modifying Python lists or dicts. Therefore, the example first collects all matching elements with root.findall(), and only then iterates over the list of matches.

生成的XML现在看起来像这样：

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<data>
    <country name="Liechtenstein">
        <rank updated="yes">2</rank>
        <year>2008</year>
        <gdppc>141100</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Austria" direction="E"/>
        <neighbor name="Switzerland" direction="W"/>
    </country>
    <country name="Singapore">
        <rank updated="yes">5</rank>
        <year>2011</year>
        <gdppc>59900</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Malaysia" direction="N"/>
    </country>
</data>

构建XML文档

SubElement() 函数还提供了一种便捷方法来为给定元素创建新的子元素:

>>> a = ET.Element('a')
>>> b = ET.SubElement(a, 'b')
>>> c = ET.SubElement(a, 'c')
>>> d = ET.SubElement(c, 'd')
>>> ET.dump(a)
<a><b /><c><d /></c></a>

使用命名空间解析XML

If the XML input has namespaces, tags and attributes with prefixes in the form prefix:sometag get expanded to {uri}sometag where the prefix is replaced by the full URI. Also, if there is a default namespace, that full URI gets prepended to all of the non-prefixed tags.

Here is an XML example that incorporates two namespaces, one with the prefix "fictional" and the other serving as the default namespace:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<actors xmlns:fictional="http://characters.example.com"
        xmlns="http://people.example.com">
    <actor>
        <name>John Cleese</name>
        <fictional:character>Lancelot</fictional:character>
        <fictional:character>Archie Leach</fictional:character>
    </actor>
    <actor>
        <name>Eric Idle</name>
        <fictional:character>Sir Robin</fictional:character>
        <fictional:character>Gunther</fictional:character>
        <fictional:character>Commander Clement</fictional:character>
    </actor>
</actors>

One way to search and explore this XML example is to manually add the URI to every tag or attribute in the xpath of a find() or findall():

root = fromstring(xml_text)
for actor in root.findall('{http://people.example.com}actor'):
    name = actor.find('{http://people.example.com}name')
    print(name.text)
    for char in actor.findall('{http://characters.example.com}character'):
        print(' |-->', char.text)

A better way to search the namespaced XML example is to create a dictionary with your own prefixes and use those in the search functions:

ns = {'real_person': 'http://people.example.com',
      'role': 'http://characters.example.com'}

for actor in root.findall('real_person:actor', ns):
    name = actor.find('real_person:name', ns)
    print(name.text)
    for char in actor.findall('role:character', ns):
        print(' |-->', char.text)

These two approaches both output:

John Cleese
 |--> Lancelot
 |--> Archie Leach
Eric Idle
 |--> Sir Robin
 |--> Gunther
 |--> Commander Clement

其他资源

See http://effbot.org/zone/element-index.htm for tutorials and links to other docs.

XPath支持

This module provides limited support for XPath expressions for locating elements in a tree. The goal is to support a small subset of the abbreviated syntax; a full XPath engine is outside the scope of the module.

示例

Here's an example that demonstrates some of the XPath capabilities of the module. We'll be using the countrydata XML document from the Parsing XML section:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

root = ET.fromstring(countrydata)

# Top-level elements
root.findall(".")

# All 'neighbor' grand-children of 'country' children of the top-level
# elements
root.findall("./country/neighbor")

# Nodes with name='Singapore' that have a 'year' child
root.findall(".//year/..[@name='Singapore']")

# 'year' nodes that are children of nodes with name='Singapore'
root.findall(".//*[@name='Singapore']/year")

# All 'neighbor' nodes that are the second child of their parent
root.findall(".//neighbor[2]")

For XML with namespaces, use the usual qualified {namespace}tag notation:

# All dublin-core "title" tags in the document
root.findall(".//{http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/}title")

支持的XPath语法

语法	含义
tag	Selects all child elements with the given tag. For example, spam selects all child elements named spam, and spam/egg selects all grandchildren named egg in all children named spam. {namespace}* selects all tags in the given namespace, {*}spam selects tags named spam in any (or no) namespace, and {}* only selects tags that are not in a namespace. 在 3.8 版更改: Support for star-wildcards was added.
*	选择所有子元素，包括注释和处理说明。例如 */egg 选择所有名为 egg 的孙元素。
.	选择当前节点。这在路径的开头非常有用，用于指示它是相对路径。
//	Selects all subelements, on all levels beneath the current element. For example, .//egg selects all egg elements in the entire tree.
..	Selects the parent element. Returns None if the path attempts to reach the ancestors of the start element (the element find was called on).
[@attrib]	选择具有给定属性的所有元素。
[@attrib='value']	选择给定属性具有给定值的所有元素。该值不能包含引号。
[@attrib!='value']	Selects all elements for which the given attribute does not have the given value. The value cannot contain quotes. 3.10 新版功能.
[tag]	选择所有包含 tag 子元素的元素。只支持直系子元素。
[.='text']	选择完整文本内容等于 text 的所有元素（包括后代）。 3.7 新版功能.
[.!='text']	Selects all elements whose complete text content, including descendants, does not equal the given text. 3.10 新版功能.
[tag='text']	选择所有包含名为 tag 的子元素的元素，这些子元素（包括后代）的完整文本内容等于给定的 text 。
[tag!='text']	Selects all elements that have a child named tag whose complete text content, including descendants, does not equal the given text. 3.10 新版功能.
[position]	Selects all elements that are located at the given position. The position can be either an integer (1 is the first position), the expression last() (for the last position), or a position relative to the last position (e.g. last()-1).

谓词（方括号内的表达式）之前必须带有标签名称，星号或其他谓词。position 谓词前必须有标签名称。

参考引用

函数

xml.etree.ElementTree.canonicalize(xml_data=None, *, out=None, from_file=None, **options)

C14N 2.0 转换功能。.

Canonicalization is a way to normalise XML output in a way that allows byte-by-byte comparisons and digital signatures. It reduced the freedom that XML serializers have and instead generates a more constrained XML representation. The main restrictions regard the placement of namespace declarations, the ordering of attributes, and ignorable whitespace.

This function takes an XML data string (xml_data) or a file path or file-like object (from_file) as input, converts it to the canonical form, and writes it out using the out file(-like) object, if provided, or returns it as a text string if not. The output file receives text, not bytes. It should therefore be opened in text mode with utf-8 encoding.

典型使用:

xml_data = "<root>...</root>"
print(canonicalize(xml_data))

with open("c14n_output.xml", mode='w', encoding='utf-8') as out_file:
    canonicalize(xml_data, out=out_file)

with open("c14n_output.xml", mode='w', encoding='utf-8') as out_file:
    canonicalize(from_file="inputfile.xml", out=out_file)

The configuration options are as follows:

• with_comments: set to true to include comments (default: false)

• strip_text: set to true to strip whitespace before and after text content

  （默认值：否）

• rewrite_prefixes: set to true to replace namespace prefixes by "n{number}"

  （默认值：否）

• qname_aware_tags: a set of qname aware tag names in which prefixes

  should be replaced in text content (default: empty)

• qname_aware_attrs: a set of qname aware attribute names in which prefixes

  should be replaced in text content (default: empty)

• exclude_attrs: a set of attribute names that should not be serialised

• exclude_tags: a set of tag names that should not be serialised

In the option list above, "a set" refers to any collection or iterable of strings, no ordering is expected.

3.8 新版功能.

xml.etree.ElementTree.Comment(text=None)

Comment element factory. This factory function creates a special element that will be serialized as an XML comment by the standard serializer. The comment string can be either a bytestring or a Unicode string. text is a string containing the comment string. Returns an element instance representing a comment.

Note that XMLParser skips over comments in the input instead of creating comment objects for them. An ElementTree will only contain comment nodes if they have been inserted into to the tree using one of the Element methods.

xml.etree.ElementTree.dump(elem)

Writes an element tree or element structure to sys.stdout. This function should be used for debugging only.

The exact output format is implementation dependent. In this version, it's written as an ordinary XML file.

elem is an element tree or an individual element.

在 3.8 版更改: The dump() function now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.

xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring(text, parser=None)

Parses an XML section from a string constant. Same as XML(). text is a string containing XML data. parser is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard XMLParser parser is used. Returns an Element instance.

xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstringlist(sequence, parser=None)

Parses an XML document from a sequence of string fragments. sequence is a list or other sequence containing XML data fragments. parser is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard XMLParser parser is used. Returns an Element instance.

3.2 新版功能.

xml.etree.ElementTree.indent(tree, space=' ', level=0)

Appends whitespace to the subtree to indent the tree visually. This can be used to generate pretty-printed XML output. tree can be an Element or ElementTree. space is the whitespace string that will be inserted for each indentation level, two space characters by default. For indenting partial subtrees inside of an already indented tree, pass the initial indentation level as level.

3.9 新版功能.

xml.etree.ElementTree.iselement(element)

Check if an object appears to be a valid element object. element is an element instance. Return True if this is an element object.

xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse(source, events=None, parser=None)

Parses an XML section into an element tree incrementally, and reports what's going on to the user. source is a filename or file object containing XML data. events is a sequence of events to report back. The supported events are the strings "start", "end", "comment", "pi", "start-ns" and "end-ns" (the "ns" events are used to get detailed namespace information). If events is omitted, only "end" events are reported. parser is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard XMLParser parser is used. parser must be a subclass of XMLParser and can only use the default TreeBuilder as a target. Returns an iterator providing (event, elem) pairs.

Note that while iterparse() builds the tree incrementally, it issues blocking reads on source (or the file it names). As such, it's unsuitable for applications where blocking reads can't be made. For fully non-blocking parsing, see XMLPullParser.

注解

iterparse() only guarantees that it has seen the ">" character of a starting tag when it emits a "start" event, so the attributes are defined, but the contents of the text and tail attributes are undefined at that point. The same applies to the element children; they may or may not be present.

If you need a fully populated element, look for "end" events instead.

3.4 版后已移除: parser 参数。

在 3.8 版更改: The comment and pi events were added.

xml.etree.ElementTree.parse(source, parser=None)

Parses an XML section into an element tree. source is a filename or file object containing XML data. parser is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard XMLParser parser is used. Returns an ElementTree instance.

xml.etree.ElementTree.ProcessingInstruction(target, text=None)

PI element factory. This factory function creates a special element that will be serialized as an XML processing instruction. target is a string containing the PI target. text is a string containing the PI contents, if given. Returns an element instance, representing a processing instruction.

Note that XMLParser skips over processing instructions in the input instead of creating comment objects for them. An ElementTree will only contain processing instruction nodes if they have been inserted into to the tree using one of the Element methods.

xml.etree.ElementTree.register_namespace(prefix, uri)

Registers a namespace prefix. The registry is global, and any existing mapping for either the given prefix or the namespace URI will be removed. prefix is a namespace prefix. uri is a namespace uri. Tags and attributes in this namespace will be serialized with the given prefix, if at all possible.

3.2 新版功能.

xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement(parent, tag, attrib={}, **extra)

Subelement factory. This function creates an element instance, and appends it to an existing element.

The element name, attribute names, and attribute values can be either bytestrings or Unicode strings. parent is the parent element. tag is the subelement name. attrib is an optional dictionary, containing element attributes. extra contains additional attributes, given as keyword arguments. Returns an element instance.

xml.etree.ElementTree.tostring(element, encoding='us-ascii', method='xml', *, xml_declaration=None, default_namespace=None, short_empty_elements=True)

Generates a string representation of an XML element, including all subelements. element is an Element instance. encoding 1 is the output encoding (default is US-ASCII). Use encoding="unicode" to generate a Unicode string (otherwise, a bytestring is generated). method is either "xml", "html" or "text" (default is "xml"). xml_declaration, default_namespace and short_empty_elements has the same meaning as in ElementTree.write(). Returns an (optionally) encoded string containing the XML data.

3.4 新版功能: short_empty_elements 形参。

3.8 新版功能: The xml_declaration and default_namespace parameters.

在 3.8 版更改: The tostring() function now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.

xml.etree.ElementTree.tostringlist(element, encoding='us-ascii', method='xml', *, xml_declaration=None, default_namespace=None, short_empty_elements=True)

Generates a string representation of an XML element, including all subelements. element is an Element instance. encoding 1 is the output encoding (default is US-ASCII). Use encoding="unicode" to generate a Unicode string (otherwise, a bytestring is generated). method is either "xml", "html" or "text" (default is "xml"). xml_declaration, default_namespace and short_empty_elements has the same meaning as in ElementTree.write(). Returns a list of (optionally) encoded strings containing the XML data. It does not guarantee any specific sequence, except that b"".join(tostringlist(element)) == tostring(element).

3.2 新版功能.

3.4 新版功能: short_empty_elements 形参。

3.8 新版功能: The xml_declaration and default_namespace parameters.

在 3.8 版更改: The tostringlist() function now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.

xml.etree.ElementTree.XML(text, parser=None)

Parses an XML section from a string constant. This function can be used to embed "XML literals" in Python code. text is a string containing XML data. parser is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard XMLParser parser is used. Returns an Element instance.

xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLID(text, parser=None)

Parses an XML section from a string constant, and also returns a dictionary which maps from element id:s to elements. text is a string containing XML data. parser is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard XMLParser parser is used. Returns a tuple containing an Element instance and a dictionary.

XInclude 支持

This module provides limited support for XInclude directives, via the xml.etree.ElementInclude helper module. This module can be used to insert subtrees and text strings into element trees, based on information in the tree.

示例

Here's an example that demonstrates use of the XInclude module. To include an XML document in the current document, use the {http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude}include element and set the parse attribute to "xml", and use the href attribute to specify the document to include.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<document xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
  <xi:include href="source.xml" parse="xml" />
</document>

By default, the href attribute is treated as a file name. You can use custom loaders to override this behaviour. Also note that the standard helper does not support XPointer syntax.

To process this file, load it as usual, and pass the root element to the xml.etree.ElementTree module:

from xml.etree import ElementTree, ElementInclude

tree = ElementTree.parse("document.xml")
root = tree.getroot()

ElementInclude.include(root)

The ElementInclude module replaces the {http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude}include element with the root element from the source.xml document. The result might look something like this:

<document xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
  <para>This is a paragraph.</para>
</document>

If the parse attribute is omitted, it defaults to "xml". The href attribute is required.

To include a text document, use the {http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude}include element, and set the parse attribute to "text":

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<document xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
  Copyright (c) <xi:include href="year.txt" parse="text" />.
</document>

结果可能如下所示：

<document xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
  Copyright (c) 2003.
</document>

参考引用

函数

xml.etree.ElementInclude.default_loader(href, parse, encoding=None)

Default loader. This default loader reads an included resource from disk. href is a URL. parse is for parse mode either "xml" or "text". encoding is an optional text encoding. If not given, encoding is utf-8. Returns the expanded resource. If the parse mode is "xml", this is an ElementTree instance. If the parse mode is "text", this is a Unicode string. If the loader fails, it can return None or raise an exception.

xml.etree.ElementInclude.include(elem, loader=None, base_url=None, max_depth=6)

This function expands XInclude directives. elem is the root element. loader is an optional resource loader. If omitted, it defaults to default_loader(). If given, it should be a callable that implements the same interface as default_loader(). base_url is base URL of the original file, to resolve relative include file references. max_depth is the maximum number of recursive inclusions. Limited to reduce the risk of malicious content explosion. Pass a negative value to disable the limitation.

Returns the expanded resource. If the parse mode is "xml", this is an ElementTree instance. If the parse mode is "text", this is a Unicode string. If the loader fails, it can return None or raise an exception.

3.9 新版功能: The base_url and max_depth parameters.

元素对象

class xml.etree.ElementTree.Element(tag, attrib={}, **extra)

Element class. This class defines the Element interface, and provides a reference implementation of this interface.

The element name, attribute names, and attribute values can be either bytestrings or Unicode strings. tag is the element name. attrib is an optional dictionary, containing element attributes. extra contains additional attributes, given as keyword arguments.

tag

一个标识此元素意味着何种数据的字符串(换句话说，元素类型)。

text

tail

These attributes can be used to hold additional data associated with the element. Their values are usually strings but may be any application-specific object. If the element is created from an XML file, the text attribute holds either the text between the element's start tag and its first child or end tag, or None, and the tail attribute holds either the text between the element's end tag and the next tag, or None. For the XML data

<a><b>1<c>2<d/>3</c></b>4</a>

the a element has None for both text and tail attributes, the b element has text "1" and tail "4", the c element has text "2" and tail None, and the d element has text None and tail "3".

To collect the inner text of an element, see itertext(), for example "".join(element.itertext()).

Applications may store arbitrary objects in these attributes.

attrib

A dictionary containing the element's attributes. Note that while the attrib value is always a real mutable Python dictionary, an ElementTree implementation may choose to use another internal representation, and create the dictionary only if someone asks for it. To take advantage of such implementations, use the dictionary methods below whenever possible.

The following dictionary-like methods work on the element attributes.

clear()

Resets an element. This function removes all subelements, clears all attributes, and sets the text and tail attributes to None.

get(key, default=None)

Gets the element attribute named key.

Returns the attribute value, or default if the attribute was not found.

items()

Returns the element attributes as a sequence of (name, value) pairs. The attributes are returned in an arbitrary order.

keys()

Returns the elements attribute names as a list. The names are returned in an arbitrary order.

set(key, value)

Set the attribute key on the element to value.

The following methods work on the element's children (subelements).

append(subelement)

Adds the element subelement to the end of this element's internal list of subelements. Raises TypeError if subelement is not an Element.

extend(subelements)

Appends subelements from a sequence object with zero or more elements. Raises TypeError if a subelement is not an Element.

3.2 新版功能.

find(match, namespaces=None)

Finds the first subelement matching match. match may be a tag name or a path. Returns an element instance or None. namespaces is an optional mapping from namespace prefix to full name. Pass '' as prefix to move all unprefixed tag names in the expression into the given namespace.

findall(match, namespaces=None)

Finds all matching subelements, by tag name or path. Returns a list containing all matching elements in document order. namespaces is an optional mapping from namespace prefix to full name. Pass '' as prefix to move all unprefixed tag names in the expression into the given namespace.

findtext(match, default=None, namespaces=None)

Finds text for the first subelement matching match. match may be a tag name or a path. Returns the text content of the first matching element, or default if no element was found. Note that if the matching element has no text content an empty string is returned. namespaces is an optional mapping from namespace prefix to full name. Pass '' as prefix to move all unprefixed tag names in the expression into the given namespace.

insert(index, subelement)

Inserts subelement at the given position in this element. Raises TypeError if subelement is not an Element.

iter(tag=None)

Creates a tree iterator with the current element as the root. The iterator iterates over this element and all elements below it, in document (depth first) order. If tag is not None or '*', only elements whose tag equals tag are returned from the iterator. If the tree structure is modified during iteration, the result is undefined.

3.2 新版功能.

iterfind(match, namespaces=None)

Finds all matching subelements, by tag name or path. Returns an iterable yielding all matching elements in document order. namespaces is an optional mapping from namespace prefix to full name.

3.2 新版功能.

itertext()

Creates a text iterator. The iterator loops over this element and all subelements, in document order, and returns all inner text.

3.2 新版功能.

makeelement(tag, attrib)

Creates a new element object of the same type as this element. Do not call this method, use the SubElement() factory function instead.

remove(subelement)

Removes subelement from the element. Unlike the find* methods this method compares elements based on the instance identity, not on tag value or contents.

Element objects also support the following sequence type methods for working with subelements: __delitem__(), __getitem__(), __setitem__(), __len__().

Caution: Elements with no subelements will test as False. This behavior will change in future versions. Use specific len(elem) or elem is None test instead.

element = root.find('foo')

if not element:  # careful!
    print("element not found, or element has no subelements")

if element is None:
    print("element not found")

Prior to Python 3.8, the serialisation order of the XML attributes of elements was artificially made predictable by sorting the attributes by their name. Based on the now guaranteed ordering of dicts, this arbitrary reordering was removed in Python 3.8 to preserve the order in which attributes were originally parsed or created by user code.

In general, user code should try not to depend on a specific ordering of attributes, given that the XML Information Set explicitly excludes the attribute order from conveying information. Code should be prepared to deal with any ordering on input. In cases where deterministic XML output is required, e.g. for cryptographic signing or test data sets, canonical serialisation is available with the canonicalize() function.

In cases where canonical output is not applicable but a specific attribute order is still desirable on output, code should aim for creating the attributes directly in the desired order, to avoid perceptual mismatches for readers of the code. In cases where this is difficult to achieve, a recipe like the following can be applied prior to serialisation to enforce an order independently from the Element creation:

def reorder_attributes(root):
    for el in root.iter():
        attrib = el.attrib
        if len(attrib) > 1:
            # adjust attribute order, e.g. by sorting
            attribs = sorted(attrib.items())
            attrib.clear()
            attrib.update(attribs)

ElementTree 对象

class xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree(element=None, file=None)

ElementTree wrapper class. This class represents an entire element hierarchy, and adds some extra support for serialization to and from standard XML.

element is the root element. The tree is initialized with the contents of the XML file if given.

_setroot(element)

Replaces the root element for this tree. This discards the current contents of the tree, and replaces it with the given element. Use with care. element is an element instance.

find(match, namespaces=None)

Same as Element.find(), starting at the root of the tree.

findall(match, namespaces=None)

Same as Element.findall(), starting at the root of the tree.

findtext(match, default=None, namespaces=None)

Same as Element.findtext(), starting at the root of the tree.

getroot()

Returns the root element for this tree.

iter(tag=None)

Creates and returns a tree iterator for the root element. The iterator loops over all elements in this tree, in section order. tag is the tag to look for (default is to return all elements).

iterfind(match, namespaces=None)

Same as Element.iterfind(), starting at the root of the tree.

3.2 新版功能.

parse(source, parser=None)

Loads an external XML section into this element tree. source is a file name or file object. parser is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard XMLParser parser is used. Returns the section root element.

write(file, encoding='us-ascii', xml_declaration=None, default_namespace=None, method='xml', *, short_empty_elements=True)

Writes the element tree to a file, as XML. file is a file name, or a file object opened for writing. encoding 1 is the output encoding (default is US-ASCII). xml_declaration controls if an XML declaration should be added to the file. Use False for never, True for always, None for only if not US-ASCII or UTF-8 or Unicode (default is None). default_namespace sets the default XML namespace (for "xmlns"). method is either "xml", "html" or "text" (default is "xml"). The keyword-only short_empty_elements parameter controls the formatting of elements that contain no content. If True (the default), they are emitted as a single self-closed tag, otherwise they are emitted as a pair of start/end tags.

The output is either a string (str) or binary (bytes). This is controlled by the encoding argument. If encoding is "unicode", the output is a string; otherwise, it's binary. Note that this may conflict with the type of file if it's an open file object; make sure you do not try to write a string to a binary stream and vice versa.

3.4 新版功能: short_empty_elements 形参。

在 3.8 版更改: The write() method now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.

This is the XML file that is going to be manipulated:

<html>
    <head>
        <title>Example page</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <p>Moved to <a href="http://example.org/">example.org</a>
        or <a href="http://example.com/">example.com</a>.</p>
    </body>
</html>

Example of changing the attribute "target" of every link in first paragraph:

>>> from xml.etree.ElementTree import ElementTree
>>> tree = ElementTree()
>>> tree.parse("index.xhtml")
<Element 'html' at 0xb77e6fac>
>>> p = tree.find("body/p")     # Finds first occurrence of tag p in body
>>> p
<Element 'p' at 0xb77ec26c>
>>> links = list(p.iter("a"))   # Returns list of all links
>>> links
[<Element 'a' at 0xb77ec2ac>, <Element 'a' at 0xb77ec1cc>]
>>> for i in links:             # Iterates through all found links
...     i.attrib["target"] = "blank"
>>> tree.write("output.xhtml")

QName Objects

class xml.etree.ElementTree.QName(text_or_uri, tag=None)

QName wrapper. This can be used to wrap a QName attribute value, in order to get proper namespace handling on output. text_or_uri is a string containing the QName value, in the form {uri}local, or, if the tag argument is given, the URI part of a QName. If tag is given, the first argument is interpreted as a URI, and this argument is interpreted as a local name. QName instances are opaque.

TreeBuilder Objects

class xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder(element_factory=None, *, comment_factory=None, pi_factory=None, insert_comments=False, insert_pis=False)

Generic element structure builder. This builder converts a sequence of start, data, end, comment and pi method calls to a well-formed element structure. You can use this class to build an element structure using a custom XML parser, or a parser for some other XML-like format.

element_factory, when given, must be a callable accepting two positional arguments: a tag and a dict of attributes. It is expected to return a new element instance.

The comment_factory and pi_factory functions, when given, should behave like the Comment() and ProcessingInstruction() functions to create comments and processing instructions. When not given, the default factories will be used. When insert_comments and/or insert_pis is true, comments/pis will be inserted into the tree if they appear within the root element (but not outside of it).

close()

Flushes the builder buffers, and returns the toplevel document element. Returns an Element instance.

data(data)

Adds text to the current element. data is a string. This should be either a bytestring, or a Unicode string.

end(tag)

Closes the current element. tag is the element name. Returns the closed element.

start(tag, attrs)

Opens a new element. tag is the element name. attrs is a dictionary containing element attributes. Returns the opened element.

comment(text)

Creates a comment with the given text. If insert_comments is true, this will also add it to the tree.

3.8 新版功能.

pi(target, text)

Creates a comment with the given target name and text. If insert_pis is true, this will also add it to the tree.

3.8 新版功能.

In addition, a custom TreeBuilder object can provide the following methods:

doctype(name, pubid, system)

Handles a doctype declaration. name is the doctype name. pubid is the public identifier. system is the system identifier. This method does not exist on the default TreeBuilder class.

3.2 新版功能.

start_ns(prefix, uri)

Is called whenever the parser encounters a new namespace declaration, before the start() callback for the opening element that defines it. prefix is '' for the default namespace and the declared namespace prefix name otherwise. uri is the namespace URI.

3.8 新版功能.

end_ns(prefix)

Is called after the end() callback of an element that declared a namespace prefix mapping, with the name of the prefix that went out of scope.

3.8 新版功能.

class xml.etree.ElementTree.C14NWriterTarget(write, *, with_comments=False, strip_text=False, rewrite_prefixes=False, qname_aware_tags=None, qname_aware_attrs=None, exclude_attrs=None, exclude_tags=None)

A C14N 2.0 writer. Arguments are the same as for the canonicalize() function. This class does not build a tree but translates the callback events directly into a serialised form using the write function.

3.8 新版功能.

XMLParser对象

class xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser(*, target=None, encoding=None)

This class is the low-level building block of the module. It uses xml.parsers.expat for efficient, event-based parsing of XML. It can be fed XML data incrementally with the feed() method, and parsing events are translated to a push API - by invoking callbacks on the target object. If target is omitted, the standard TreeBuilder is used. If encoding 1 is given, the value overrides the encoding specified in the XML file.

在 3.8 版更改: Parameters are now keyword-only. The html argument no longer supported.

close()

Finishes feeding data to the parser. Returns the result of calling the close() method of the target passed during construction; by default, this is the toplevel document element.

feed(data)

Feeds data to the parser. data is encoded data.

XMLParser.feed() calls target's start(tag, attrs_dict) method for each opening tag, its end(tag) method for each closing tag, and data is processed by method data(data). For further supported callback methods, see the TreeBuilder class. XMLParser.close() calls target's method close(). XMLParser can be used not only for building a tree structure. This is an example of counting the maximum depth of an XML file:

>>> from xml.etree.ElementTree import XMLParser
>>> class MaxDepth:                     # The target object of the parser
...     maxDepth = 0
...     depth = 0
...     def start(self, tag, attrib):   # Called for each opening tag.
...         self.depth += 1
...         if self.depth > self.maxDepth:
...             self.maxDepth = self.depth
...     def end(self, tag):             # Called for each closing tag.
...         self.depth -= 1
...     def data(self, data):
...         pass            # We do not need to do anything with data.
...     def close(self):    # Called when all data has been parsed.
...         return self.maxDepth
...
>>> target = MaxDepth()
>>> parser = XMLParser(target=target)
>>> exampleXml = """
... <a>
...   <b>
...   </b>
...   <b>
...     <c>
...       <d>
...       </d>
...     </c>
...   </b>
... </a>"""
>>> parser.feed(exampleXml)
>>> parser.close()
4

XMLPullParser对象

class xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser(events=None)

A pull parser suitable for non-blocking applications. Its input-side API is similar to that of XMLParser, but instead of pushing calls to a callback target, XMLPullParser collects an internal list of parsing events and lets the user read from it. events is a sequence of events to report back. The supported events are the strings "start", "end", "comment", "pi", "start-ns" and "end-ns" (the "ns" events are used to get detailed namespace information). If events is omitted, only "end" events are reported.

feed(data)

Feed the given bytes data to the parser.

close()

Signal the parser that the data stream is terminated. Unlike XMLParser.close(), this method always returns None. Any events not yet retrieved when the parser is closed can still be read with read_events().

read_events()

Return an iterator over the events which have been encountered in the data fed to the parser. The iterator yields (event, elem) pairs, where event is a string representing the type of event (e.g. "end") and elem is the encountered Element object, or other context value as follows.

• start, end: the current Element.

• comment, pi: the current comment / processing instruction

• start-ns: a tuple (prefix, uri) naming the declared namespace mapping.

• end-ns: None (this may change in a future version)

Events provided in a previous call to read_events() will not be yielded again. Events are consumed from the internal queue only when they are retrieved from the iterator, so multiple readers iterating in parallel over iterators obtained from read_events() will have unpredictable results.

注解

XMLPullParser only guarantees that it has seen the ">" character of a starting tag when it emits a "start" event, so the attributes are defined, but the contents of the text and tail attributes are undefined at that point. The same applies to the element children; they may or may not be present.

If you need a fully populated element, look for "end" events instead.

3.4 新版功能.

在 3.8 版更改: The comment and pi events were added.

异常

class xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError

XML parse error, raised by the various parsing methods in this module when parsing fails. The string representation of an instance of this exception will contain a user-friendly error message. In addition, it will have the following attributes available:

code

A numeric error code from the expat parser. See the documentation of xml.parsers.expat for the list of error codes and their meanings.

position

A tuple of line, column numbers, specifying where the error occurred.

脚注

1(1,2,3,4)

The encoding string included in XML output should conform to the appropriate standards. For example, "UTF-8" is valid, but "UTF8" is not. See https://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#NT-EncodingDecl and https://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets/character-sets.xhtml.