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| Boilerpipe Text | Source code:
Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py
The
xml.etree.ElementTree
module implements a simple and efficient API
for parsing and creating XML data.
Changed in version 3.3:
This module will use a fast implementation whenever available.
Deprecated since version 3.3:
The
xml.etree.cElementTree
module is deprecated.
Note
If you need to parse untrusted or unauthenticated data, see
XML security
.
Tutorial
¶
This is a short tutorial for using
xml.etree.ElementTree
(
ET
in
short). The goal is to demonstrate some of the building blocks and basic
concepts of the module.
XML tree and elements
¶
XML is an inherently hierarchical data format, and the most natural way to
represent it is with a tree.
ET
has two classes for this purpose -
ElementTree
represents the whole XML document as a tree, and
Element
represents a single node in this tree. Interactions with
the whole document (reading and writing to/from files) are usually done
on the
ElementTree
level. Interactions with a single XML element
and its sub-elements are done on the
Element
level.
Parsing XML
¶
We’ll be using the fictive
country_data.xml
XML document as the sample data for this section:
<?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>
We can import this data by reading from a file:
import
xml.etree.ElementTree
as
ET
tree
=
ET
.
parse
(
'country_data.xml'
)
root
=
tree
.
getroot
()
Or directly from a string:
root
=
ET
.
fromstring
(
country_data_as_string
)
fromstring()
parses XML from a string directly into an
Element
,
which is the root element of the parsed tree. Other parsing functions may
create an
ElementTree
. Check the documentation to be sure.
As an
Element
,
root
has a tag and a dictionary of attributes:
>>>
root
.
tag
'data'
>>>
root
.
attrib
{}
It also has children nodes over which we can iterate:
>>>
for
child
in
root
:
...
print
(
child
.
tag
,
child
.
attrib
)
...
country {'name': 'Liechtenstein'}
country {'name': 'Singapore'}
country {'name': 'Panama'}
Children are nested, and we can access specific child nodes by index:
>>>
root
[
0
][
1
]
.
text
'2008'
Note
Not all elements of the XML input will end up as elements of the
parsed tree. Currently, this module skips over any XML comments,
processing instructions, and document type declarations in the
input. Nevertheless, trees built using this module’s API rather
than parsing from XML text can have comments and processing
instructions in them; they will be included when generating XML
output. A document type declaration may be accessed by passing a
custom
TreeBuilder
instance to the
XMLParser
constructor.
Pull API for non-blocking parsing
¶
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
mytag text= sometext more text
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.
Where
immediate
feedback through events is wanted, calling method
XMLPullParser.flush()
can help reduce delay;
please make sure to study the related security notes.
Finding interesting elements
¶
Element
has some useful methods that help iterate recursively over all
the sub-tree below it (its children, their children, and so on). For example,
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()
finds only elements with a tag which are direct
children of the current element.
Element.find()
finds the
first
child
with a particular tag, and
Element.text
accesses the element’s text
content.
Element.get()
accesses the element’s attributes:
>>>
for
country
in
root
.
findall
(
'country'
):
...
rank
=
country
.
find
(
'rank'
)
.
text
...
name
=
country
.
get
(
'name'
)
...
print
(
name
,
rank
)
...
Liechtenstein 1
Singapore 4
Panama 68
More sophisticated specification of which elements to look for is possible by
using
XPath
.
Modifying an XML File
¶
ElementTree
provides a simple way to build XML documents and write them to files.
The
ElementTree.write()
method serves this purpose.
Once created, an
Element
object may be manipulated by directly changing
its fields (such as
Element.text
), adding and modifying attributes
(
Element.set()
method), as well as adding new children (for example
with
Element.append()
).
Let’s say we want to add one to each country’s rank, and add an
updated
attribute to the rank element:
>>>
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'
)
Our XML now looks like this:
<?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>
We can remove elements using
Element.remove()
. Let’s say we want to
remove all countries with a rank higher than 50:
>>>
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.
Our XML now looks like this:
<?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>
Building XML documents
¶
The
SubElement()
function also provides a convenient way to create new
sub-elements for a given element:
>>>
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>
Parsing XML with Namespaces
¶
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
XPath support
¶
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.
Example
¶
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"
)
Supported XPath syntax
¶
Syntax
Meaning
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.
Changed in version 3.8:
Support for star-wildcards was added.
*
Selects all child elements, including comments and
processing instructions. For example,
*/egg
selects all grandchildren named
egg
.
.
Selects the current node. This is mostly useful
at the beginning of the path, to indicate that it’s
a relative path.
//
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]
Selects all elements that have the given attribute.
[@attrib='value']
Selects all elements for which the given attribute
has the given value. The value cannot contain
quotes.
[@attrib!='value']
Selects all elements for which the given attribute
does not have the given value. The value cannot
contain quotes.
Added in version 3.10.
[tag]
Selects all elements that have a child named
tag
. Only immediate children are supported.
[.='text']
Selects all elements whose complete text content,
including descendants, equals the given
text
.
Added in version 3.7.
[.!='text']
Selects all elements whose complete text content,
including descendants, does not equal the given
text
.
Added in version 3.10.
[tag='text']
Selects all elements that have a child named
tag
whose complete text content, including
descendants, equals the given
text
.
[tag!='text']
Selects all elements that have a child named
tag
whose complete text content, including
descendants, does not equal the given
text
.
Added in version 3.10.
[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
).
Predicates (expressions within square brackets) must be preceded by a tag
name, an asterisk, or another predicate.
position
predicates must be
preceded by a tag name.
Reference
¶
Functions
¶
xml.etree.ElementTree.
canonicalize
(
xml_data
=
None
,
*
,
out
=
None
,
from_file
=
None
,
**
options
)
¶
C14N 2.0
transformation function.
Canonicalization is a way to normalise XML output in a way that allows
byte-by-byte comparisons and digital signatures. It reduces 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.
Typical uses:
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
(default: false)
rewrite_prefixes
: set to true to replace namespace prefixes by “n{number}”
(default: false)
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.
Added in version 3.8.
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.
Changed in version 3.8:
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.
Added in version 3.2.
xml.etree.ElementTree.
indent
(
tree
,
space
=
'
Â
'
,
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
.
Added in version 3.9.
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;
it has a
root
attribute that references the root element of the
resulting XML tree once
source
is fully read.
The iterator has the
close()
method that closes the internal
file object if
source
is a filename.
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
.
Note
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.
Deprecated since version 3.4:
The
parser
argument.
Changed in version 3.8:
The
comment
and
pi
events were added.
Changed in version 3.13:
Added the
close()
method.
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 PI 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.
Added in version 3.2.
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.
Changed in version 3.4:
Added the
short_empty_elements
parameter.
Changed in version 3.8:
Added the
xml_declaration
and
default_namespace
parameters.
Changed in version 3.8:
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)
.
Added in version 3.2.
Changed in version 3.4:
Added the
short_empty_elements
parameter.
Changed in version 3.8:
Added the
xml_declaration
and
default_namespace
parameters.
Changed in version 3.8:
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 support
¶
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.
Example
¶
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>
The result might look something like:
<document
xmlns:xi=
"http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
>
Copyright
(c)
2003.
</document>
Reference
¶
Functions
¶
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
Element
instance.
If the parse mode is
"text"
, this is a 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 in-place in tree pointed by
elem
.
elem
is either the root
Element
or an
ElementTree
instance to find such 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
None
to disable the limitation.
Changed in version 3.9:
Added the
base_url
and
max_depth
parameters.
Element Objects
¶
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
¶
A string identifying what kind of data this element represents (the
element type, in other words).
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 an iterable of elements.
Raises
TypeError
if a subelement is not an
Element
.
Added in version 3.2.
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.
Added in version 3.2.
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.
Added in version 3.2.
itertext
(
)
¶
Creates a text iterator. The iterator loops over this element and all
subelements, in document order, and returns all inner text.
Added in version 3.2.
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
. In a future
release of Python, all elements will test as
True
regardless of whether
subelements exist. Instead, prefer explicit
len(elem)
or
elem
is
not
None
tests.:
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"
)
Changed in version 3.12:
Testing the truth value of an Element emits
DeprecationWarning
.
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 Objects
¶
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.
Added in version 3.2.
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.
Changed in version 3.4:
Added the
short_empty_elements
parameter.
Changed in version 3.8:
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.
Creates a comment with the given
text
. If
insert_comments
is true,
this will also add it to the tree.
Added in version 3.8.
pi
(
target
,
text
)
¶
Creates a process instruction with the given
target
name and
text
.
If
insert_pis
is true, this will also add it to the tree.
Added in version 3.8.
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.
Added in version 3.2.
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.
Added in version 3.8.
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.
Added in version 3.8.
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.
Added in version 3.8.
XMLParser Objects
¶
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.
Changed in version 3.8:
Parameters are now
keyword-only
.
The
html
argument is 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.
flush
(
)
¶
Triggers parsing of any previously fed unparsed data, which can be
used to ensure more immediate feedback, in particular with Expat >=2.6.0.
The implementation of
flush()
temporarily disables reparse deferral
with Expat (if currently enabled) and triggers a reparse.
Disabling reparse deferral has security consequences; please see
xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled()
for details.
Note that
flush()
has been backported to some prior releases of
CPython as a security fix. Check for availability of
flush()
using
hasattr()
if used in code running across a variety of Python
versions.
Added in version 3.13.
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 Objects
¶
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.
flush
(
)
¶
Triggers parsing of any previously fed unparsed data, which can be
used to ensure more immediate feedback, in particular with Expat >=2.6.0.
The implementation of
flush()
temporarily disables reparse deferral
with Expat (if currently enabled) and triggers a reparse.
Disabling reparse deferral has security consequences; please see
xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled()
for details.
Note that
flush()
has been backported to some prior releases of
CPython as a security fix. Check for availability of
flush()
using
hasattr()
if used in code running across a variety of Python
versions.
Added in version 3.13.
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.
Note
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.
Added in version 3.4.
Changed in version 3.8:
The
comment
and
pi
events were added.
Exceptions
¶
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.
Footnotes |
| Markdown | [](https://www.python.org/)
Theme
### [Table of Contents](https://docs.python.org/3/contents.html)
- [`xml.etree.ElementTree` — The ElementTree XML API](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html)
- [Tutorial](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#tutorial)
- [XML tree and elements](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml-tree-and-elements)
- [Parsing XML](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#parsing-xml)
- [Pull API for non-blocking parsing](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#pull-api-for-non-blocking-parsing)
- [Finding interesting elements](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#finding-interesting-elements)
- [Modifying an XML File](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#modifying-an-xml-file)
- [Building XML documents](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#building-xml-documents)
- [Parsing XML with Namespaces](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#parsing-xml-with-namespaces)
- [XPath support](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xpath-support)
- [Example](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#example)
- [Supported XPath syntax](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#supported-xpath-syntax)
- [Reference](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#reference)
- [Functions](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#functions)
- [XInclude support](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xinclude-support)
- [Example](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id3)
- [Reference](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id4)
- [Functions](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementinclude-functions)
- [Element Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#element-objects)
- [ElementTree Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-objects)
- [QName Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#qname-objects)
- [TreeBuilder Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#treebuilder-objects)
- [XMLParser Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xmlparser-objects)
- [XMLPullParser Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xmlpullparser-objects)
- [Exceptions](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#exceptions)
#### Previous topic
[XML Processing Modules](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.html "previous chapter")
#### Next topic
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### This page
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- [Show source](https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/main/Doc/library/xml.etree.elementtree.rst?plain=1)
### Navigation
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- [The Python Standard Library](https://docs.python.org/3/library/index.html) »
- [Structured Markup Processing Tools](https://docs.python.org/3/library/markup.html) »
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# `xml.etree.ElementTree` — The ElementTree XML API[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#module-xml.etree.ElementTree "Link to this heading")
**Source code:** [Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py](https://github.com/python/cpython/tree/3.14/Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py)
***
The `xml.etree.ElementTree` module implements a simple and efficient API for parsing and creating XML data.
Changed in version 3.3: This module will use a fast implementation whenever available.
Deprecated since version 3.3: The `xml.etree.cElementTree` module is deprecated.
Note
If you need to parse untrusted or unauthenticated data, see [XML security](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.html#xml-security).
## Tutorial[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#tutorial "Link to this heading")
This is a short tutorial for using `xml.etree.ElementTree` (`ET` in short). The goal is to demonstrate some of the building blocks and basic concepts of the module.
### XML tree and elements[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml-tree-and-elements "Link to this heading")
XML is an inherently hierarchical data format, and the most natural way to represent it is with a tree. `ET` has two classes for this purpose - [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") represents the whole XML document as a tree, and [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") represents a single node in this tree. Interactions with the whole document (reading and writing to/from files) are usually done on the `ElementTree` level. Interactions with a single XML element and its sub-elements are done on the `Element` level.
### Parsing XML[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#parsing-xml "Link to this heading")
We’ll be using the fictive `country_data.xml` XML document as the sample data for this section:
```
<?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>
```
We can import this data by reading from a file:
Copy
```
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
tree = ET.parse('country_data.xml')
root = tree.getroot()
```
Or directly from a string:
Copy
```
root = ET.fromstring(country_data_as_string)
```
[`fromstring()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring "xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring") parses XML from a string directly into an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"), which is the root element of the parsed tree. Other parsing functions may create an [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree"). Check the documentation to be sure.
As an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"), `root` has a tag and a dictionary of attributes:
Copy
```
>>> root.tag
'data'
>>> root.attrib
{}
```
It also has children nodes over which we can iterate:
Copy
```
>>> for child in root:
... print(child.tag, child.attrib)
...
country {'name': 'Liechtenstein'}
country {'name': 'Singapore'}
country {'name': 'Panama'}
```
Children are nested, and we can access specific child nodes by index:
Copy
```
>>> root[0][1].text
'2008'
```
Note
Not all elements of the XML input will end up as elements of the parsed tree. Currently, this module skips over any XML comments, processing instructions, and document type declarations in the input. Nevertheless, trees built using this module’s API rather than parsing from XML text can have comments and processing instructions in them; they will be included when generating XML output. A document type declaration may be accessed by passing a custom [`TreeBuilder`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder "xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder") instance to the [`XMLParser`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") constructor.
### Pull API for non-blocking parsing[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#pull-api-for-non-blocking-parsing "Link to this heading")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") objects.
The most powerful tool for doing this is [`XMLPullParser`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser"). It does not require a blocking read to obtain the XML data, and is instead fed with data incrementally with [`XMLPullParser.feed()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.feed "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.feed") calls. To get the parsed XML elements, call [`XMLPullParser.read_events()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events"). Here is an example:
Copy
```
>>> 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
mytag text= sometext more text
```
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse "xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse"). It can be useful when you’re reading a large XML document and don’t want to hold it wholly in memory.
Where *immediate* feedback through events is wanted, calling method [`XMLPullParser.flush()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.flush "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.flush") can help reduce delay; please make sure to study the related security notes.
### Finding interesting elements[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#finding-interesting-elements "Link to this heading")
[`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") has some useful methods that help iterate recursively over all the sub-tree below it (its children, their children, and so on). For example, [`Element.iter()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter"):
Copy
```
>>> 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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall") finds only elements with a tag which are direct children of the current element. [`Element.find()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find") finds the *first* child with a particular tag, and [`Element.text`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text") accesses the element’s text content. [`Element.get()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.get "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.get") accesses the element’s attributes:
Copy
```
>>> for country in root.findall('country'):
... rank = country.find('rank').text
... name = country.get('name')
... print(name, rank)
...
Liechtenstein 1
Singapore 4
Panama 68
```
More sophisticated specification of which elements to look for is possible by using [XPath](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-xpath).
### Modifying an XML File[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#modifying-an-xml-file "Link to this heading")
[`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") provides a simple way to build XML documents and write them to files. The [`ElementTree.write()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write") method serves this purpose.
Once created, an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") object may be manipulated by directly changing its fields (such as [`Element.text`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text")), adding and modifying attributes ([`Element.set()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.set "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.set") method), as well as adding new children (for example with [`Element.append()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.append "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.append")).
Let’s say we want to add one to each country’s rank, and add an `updated` attribute to the rank element:
Copy
```
>>> 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')
```
Our XML now looks like this:
```
<?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>
```
We can remove elements using [`Element.remove()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.remove "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.remove"). Let’s say we want to remove all countries with a rank higher than 50:
Copy
```
>>> 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.
Our XML now looks like this:
```
<?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>
```
### Building XML documents[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#building-xml-documents "Link to this heading")
The [`SubElement()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement "xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement") function also provides a convenient way to create new sub-elements for a given element:
Copy
```
>>> 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>
```
### Parsing XML with Namespaces[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#parsing-xml-with-namespaces "Link to this heading")
If the XML input has [namespaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_namespace), 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](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-names/#defaulting), 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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find") or [`findall()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall"):
Copy
```
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:
Copy
```
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:
Copy
```
John Cleese
|--> Lancelot
|--> Archie Leach
Eric Idle
|--> Sir Robin
|--> Gunther
|--> Commander Clement
```
## XPath support[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xpath-support "Link to this heading")
This module provides limited support for [XPath expressions](https://www.w3.org/TR/xpath) 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.
### Example[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#example "Link to this heading")
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](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-parsing-xml) section:
Copy
```
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:
Copy
```
# All dublin-core "title" tags in the document
root.findall(".//{http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/}title")
```
### Supported XPath syntax[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#supported-xpath-syntax "Link to this heading")
| Syntax | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `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. Changed in version 3.8: Support for star-wildcards was added. |
| `*` | Selects all child elements, including comments and processing instructions. For example, `*/egg` selects all grandchildren named `egg`. |
| `.` | Selects the current node. This is mostly useful at the beginning of the path, to indicate that it’s a relative path. |
| `//` | 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]` | Selects all elements that have the given attribute. |
| `[@attrib='value']` | Selects all elements for which the given attribute has the given value. The value cannot contain quotes. |
| `[@attrib!='value']` | Selects all elements for which the given attribute does not have the given value. The value cannot contain quotes. Added in version 3.10. |
| `[tag]` | Selects all elements that have a child named `tag`. Only immediate children are supported. |
| `[.='text']` | Selects all elements whose complete text content, including descendants, equals the given `text`. Added in version 3.7. |
| `[.!='text']` | Selects all elements whose complete text content, including descendants, does not equal the given `text`. Added in version 3.10. |
| `[tag='text']` | Selects all elements that have a child named `tag` whose complete text content, including descendants, equals the given `text`. |
| `[tag!='text']` | Selects all elements that have a child named `tag` whose complete text content, including descendants, does not equal the given `text`. Added in version 3.10. |
| `[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`). |
Predicates (expressions within square brackets) must be preceded by a tag name, an asterisk, or another predicate. `position` predicates must be preceded by a tag name.
## Reference[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#reference "Link to this heading")
### Functions[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#functions "Link to this heading")
xml.etree.ElementTree.canonicalize(*xml\_data\=None*, *\**, *out\=None*, *from\_file\=None*, *\*\*options*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.canonicalize "Link to this definition")
[C14N 2.0](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n2/) transformation function.
Canonicalization is a way to normalise XML output in a way that allows byte-by-byte comparisons and digital signatures. It reduces 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.
Typical uses:
Copy
```
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
(default: false)
- *rewrite\_prefixes*: set to true to replace namespace prefixes by “n{number}”
(default: false)
- *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.
Added in version 3.8.
xml.etree.ElementTree.Comment(*text\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Comment "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") skips over comments in the input instead of creating comment objects for them. An [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") will only contain comment nodes if they have been inserted into to the tree using one of the [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") methods.
xml.etree.ElementTree.dump(*elem*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.dump "Link to this definition")
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.
Changed in version 3.8: The `dump()` function now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.
xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring(*text*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring "Link to this definition")
Parses an XML section from a string constant. Same as [`XML()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XML "xml.etree.ElementTree.XML"). *text* is a string containing XML data. *parser* is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard [`XMLParser`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. Returns an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance.
xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstringlist(*sequence*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstringlist "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. Returns an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance.
Added in version 3.2.
xml.etree.ElementTree.indent(*tree*, *space\=' '*, *level\=0*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.indent "Link to this definition")
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*.
Added in version 3.9.
xml.etree.ElementTree.iselement(*element*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.iselement "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse "Link to this definition")
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](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. *parser* must be a subclass of `XMLParser` and can only use the default [`TreeBuilder`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder "xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder") as a target. Returns an [iterator](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-iterator) providing `(event, elem)` pairs; it has a `root` attribute that references the root element of the resulting XML tree once *source* is fully read. The iterator has the `close()` method that closes the internal file object if *source* is a filename.
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser").
Note
`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.
Deprecated since version 3.4: The *parser* argument.
Changed in version 3.8: The `comment` and `pi` events were added.
Changed in version 3.13: Added the `close()` method.
xml.etree.ElementTree.parse(*source*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.parse "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. Returns an [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") instance.
xml.etree.ElementTree.ProcessingInstruction(*target*, *text\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ProcessingInstruction "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") skips over processing instructions in the input instead of creating PI objects for them. An [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") will only contain processing instruction nodes if they have been inserted into to the tree using one of the [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") methods.
xml.etree.ElementTree.register\_namespace(*prefix*, *uri*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.register_namespace "Link to this definition")
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.
Added in version 3.2.
xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement(*parent*, *tag*, *attrib\={}*, *\*\*extra*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.tostring "Link to this definition")
Generates a string representation of an XML element, including all subelements. *element* is an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance. *encoding* [\[1\]](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id9) 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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write"). Returns an (optionally) encoded string containing the XML data.
Changed in version 3.4: Added the *short\_empty\_elements* parameter.
Changed in version 3.8: Added the *xml\_declaration* and *default\_namespace* parameters.
Changed in version 3.8: 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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.tostringlist "Link to this definition")
Generates a string representation of an XML element, including all subelements. *element* is an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance. *encoding* [\[1\]](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id9) 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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write "xml.etree.ElementTree.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)`.
Added in version 3.2.
Changed in version 3.4: Added the *short\_empty\_elements* parameter.
Changed in version 3.8: Added the *xml\_declaration* and *default\_namespace* parameters.
Changed in version 3.8: The `tostringlist()` function now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.
xml.etree.ElementTree.XML(*text*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XML "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. Returns an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance.
xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLID(*text*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLID "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. Returns a tuple containing an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance and a dictionary.
## XInclude support[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xinclude-support "Link to this heading")
This module provides limited support for [XInclude directives](https://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude/), via the [`xml.etree.ElementInclude`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#module-xml.etree.ElementInclude "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.
### Example[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id3 "Link to this heading")
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:
Copy
```
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>
```
The result might look something like:
```
<document xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
Copyright (c) 2003.
</document>
```
## Reference[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id4 "Link to this heading")
### Functions[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementinclude-functions "Link to this heading")
xml.etree.ElementInclude.default\_loader(*href*, *parse*, *encoding\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementInclude.default_loader "Link to this definition")
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 [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance. If the parse mode is `"text"`, this is a 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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementInclude.include "Link to this definition")
This function expands XInclude directives in-place in tree pointed by *elem*. *elem* is either the root [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") or an [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") instance to find such element. *loader* is an optional resource loader. If omitted, it defaults to [`default_loader()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementInclude.default_loader "xml.etree.ElementInclude.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 `None` to disable the limitation.
Changed in version 3.9: Added the *base\_url* and *max\_depth* parameters.
### Element Objects[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#element-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.Element(*tag*, *attrib\={}*, *\*\*extra*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "Link to this definition")
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[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.tag "Link to this definition")
A string identifying what kind of data this element represents (the element type, in other words).
text[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text "Link to this definition")
tail[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.tail "Link to this definition")
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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.itertext "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.itertext"), for example `"".join(element.itertext())`.
Applications may store arbitrary objects in these attributes.
attrib[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.attrib "Link to this definition")
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()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.clear "Link to this definition")
Resets an element. This function removes all subelements, clears all attributes, and sets the text and tail attributes to `None`.
get(*key*, *default\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.get "Link to this definition")
Gets the element attribute named *key*.
Returns the attribute value, or *default* if the attribute was not found.
items()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.items "Link to this definition")
Returns the element attributes as a sequence of (name, value) pairs. The attributes are returned in an arbitrary order.
keys()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.keys "Link to this definition")
Returns the elements attribute names as a list. The names are returned in an arbitrary order.
set(*key*, *value*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.set "Link to this definition")
Set the attribute *key* on the element to *value*.
The following methods work on the element’s children (subelements).
append(*subelement*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.append "Link to this definition")
Adds the element *subelement* to the end of this element’s internal list of subelements. Raises [`TypeError`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#TypeError "TypeError") if *subelement* is not an `Element`.
extend(*subelements*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.extend "Link to this definition")
Appends *subelements* from an iterable of elements. Raises [`TypeError`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#TypeError "TypeError") if a subelement is not an `Element`.
Added in version 3.2.
find(*match*, *namespaces\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find "Link to this definition")
Finds the first subelement matching *match*. *match* may be a tag name or a [path](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-xpath). 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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall "Link to this definition")
Finds all matching subelements, by tag name or [path](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-xpath). 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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findtext "Link to this definition")
Finds text for the first subelement matching *match*. *match* may be a tag name or a [path](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-xpath). 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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.insert "Link to this definition")
Inserts *subelement* at the given position in this element. Raises [`TypeError`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#TypeError "TypeError") if *subelement* is not an `Element`.
iter(*tag\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter "Link to this definition")
Creates a tree [iterator](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-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.
Added in version 3.2.
iterfind(*match*, *namespaces\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iterfind "Link to this definition")
Finds all matching subelements, by tag name or [path](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-xpath). Returns an iterable yielding all matching elements in document order. *namespaces* is an optional mapping from namespace prefix to full name.
Added in version 3.2.
itertext()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.itertext "Link to this definition")
Creates a text iterator. The iterator loops over this element and all subelements, in document order, and returns all inner text.
Added in version 3.2.
makeelement(*tag*, *attrib*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.makeelement "Link to this definition")
Creates a new element object of the same type as this element. Do not call this method, use the [`SubElement()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement "xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement") factory function instead.
remove(*subelement*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.remove "Link to this definition")
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__()`](https://docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html#object.__delitem__ "object.__delitem__"), [`__getitem__()`](https://docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html#object.__getitem__ "object.__getitem__"), [`__setitem__()`](https://docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html#object.__setitem__ "object.__setitem__"), [`__len__()`](https://docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html#object.__len__ "object.__len__").
Caution: Elements with no subelements will test as `False`. In a future release of Python, all elements will test as `True` regardless of whether subelements exist. Instead, prefer explicit `len(elem)` or `elem is not None` tests.:
Copy
```
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")
```
Changed in version 3.12: Testing the truth value of an Element emits [`DeprecationWarning`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#DeprecationWarning "DeprecationWarning").
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](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-infoset/) 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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.canonicalize "xml.etree.ElementTree.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:
Copy
```
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 Objects[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree(*element\=None*, *file\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree._setroot "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.find "Link to this definition")
Same as [`Element.find()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find"), starting at the root of the tree.
findall(*match*, *namespaces\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.findall "Link to this definition")
Same as [`Element.findall()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall"), starting at the root of the tree.
findtext(*match*, *default\=None*, *namespaces\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.findtext "Link to this definition")
Same as [`Element.findtext()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findtext "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findtext"), starting at the root of the tree.
getroot()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.getroot "Link to this definition")
Returns the root element for this tree.
iter(*tag\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.iter "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.iterfind "Link to this definition")
Same as [`Element.iterfind()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iterfind "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iterfind"), starting at the root of the tree.
Added in version 3.2.
parse(*source*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.parse "Link to this definition")
Loads an external XML section into this element tree. *source* is a file name or [file object](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-file-object). *parser* is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard [`XMLParser`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write "Link to this definition")
Writes the element tree to a file, as XML. *file* is a file name, or a [file object](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-file-object) opened for writing. *encoding* [\[1\]](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id9) 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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str "str")) or binary ([`bytes`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#bytes "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](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-file-object); make sure you do not try to write a string to a binary stream and vice versa.
Changed in version 3.4: Added the *short\_empty\_elements* parameter.
Changed in version 3.8: The `write()` method now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.
This is the XML file that is going to be manipulated:
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```
<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:
Copy
```
>>> 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[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#qname-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.QName(*text\_or\_uri*, *tag\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.QName "Link to this definition")
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[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#treebuilder-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder(*element\_factory\=None*, *\**, *comment\_factory\=None*, *pi\_factory\=None*, *insert\_comments\=False*, *insert\_pis\=False*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder "Link to this definition")
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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Comment "xml.etree.ElementTree.Comment") and [`ProcessingInstruction()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ProcessingInstruction "xml.etree.ElementTree.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()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.close "Link to this definition")
Flushes the builder buffers, and returns the toplevel document element. Returns an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance.
data(*data*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.data "Link to this definition")
Adds text to the current element. *data* is a string. This should be either a bytestring, or a Unicode string.
end(*tag*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.end "Link to this definition")
Closes the current element. *tag* is the element name. Returns the closed element.
start(*tag*, *attrs*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.start "Link to this definition")
Opens a new element. *tag* is the element name. *attrs* is a dictionary containing element attributes. Returns the opened element.
comment(*text*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.comment "Link to this definition")
Creates a comment with the given *text*. If `insert_comments` is true, this will also add it to the tree.
Added in version 3.8.
pi(*target*, *text*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.pi "Link to this definition")
Creates a process instruction with the given *target* name and *text*. If `insert_pis` is true, this will also add it to the tree.
Added in version 3.8.
In addition, a custom `TreeBuilder` object can provide the following methods:
doctype(*name*, *pubid*, *system*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.doctype "Link to this definition")
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.
Added in version 3.2.
start\_ns(*prefix*, *uri*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.start_ns "Link to this definition")
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.
Added in version 3.8.
end\_ns(*prefix*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.end_ns "Link to this definition")
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.
Added in version 3.8.
*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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.C14NWriterTarget "Link to this definition")
A [C14N 2.0](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n2/) writer. Arguments are the same as for the [`canonicalize()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.canonicalize "xml.etree.ElementTree.canonicalize") function. This class does not build a tree but translates the callback events directly into a serialised form using the *write* function.
Added in version 3.8.
### XMLParser Objects[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xmlparser-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser(*\**, *target\=None*, *encoding\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "Link to this definition")
This class is the low-level building block of the module. It uses [`xml.parsers.expat`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pyexpat.html#module-xml.parsers.expat "xml.parsers.expat: An interface to the Expat non-validating XML parser.") for efficient, event-based parsing of XML. It can be fed XML data incrementally with the [`feed()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder "xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder") is used. If *encoding* [\[1\]](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id9) is given, the value overrides the encoding specified in the XML file.
Changed in version 3.8: Parameters are now [keyword-only](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#keyword-only-parameter). The *html* argument is no longer supported.
close()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed "Link to this definition")
Feeds data to the parser. *data* is encoded data.
flush()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.flush "Link to this definition")
Triggers parsing of any previously fed unparsed data, which can be used to ensure more immediate feedback, in particular with Expat \>=2.6.0. The implementation of `flush()` temporarily disables reparse deferral with Expat (if currently enabled) and triggers a reparse. Disabling reparse deferral has security consequences; please see [`xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pyexpat.html#xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled "xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled") for details.
Note that `flush()` has been backported to some prior releases of CPython as a security fix. Check for availability of `flush()` using [`hasattr()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#hasattr "hasattr") if used in code running across a variety of Python versions.
Added in version 3.13.
[`XMLParser.feed()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed "xml.etree.ElementTree.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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder "xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder") class. [`XMLParser.close()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close "xml.etree.ElementTree.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:
Copy
```
>>> 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 Objects[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xmlpullparser-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser(*events\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser "Link to this definition")
A pull parser suitable for non-blocking applications. Its input-side API is similar to that of [`XMLParser`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.feed "Link to this definition")
Feed the given bytes data to the parser.
flush()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.flush "Link to this definition")
Triggers parsing of any previously fed unparsed data, which can be used to ensure more immediate feedback, in particular with Expat \>=2.6.0. The implementation of `flush()` temporarily disables reparse deferral with Expat (if currently enabled) and triggers a reparse. Disabling reparse deferral has security consequences; please see [`xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pyexpat.html#xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled "xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled") for details.
Note that `flush()` has been backported to some prior releases of CPython as a security fix. Check for availability of `flush()` using [`hasattr()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#hasattr "hasattr") if used in code running across a variety of Python versions.
Added in version 3.13.
close()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.close "Link to this definition")
Signal the parser that the data stream is terminated. Unlike [`XMLParser.close()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close"), this method always returns [`None`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/constants.html#None "None"). Any events not yet retrieved when the parser is closed can still be read with [`read_events()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events").
read\_events()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/constants.html#None "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.
Note
`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.
Added in version 3.4.
Changed in version 3.8: The `comment` and `pi` events were added.
### Exceptions[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#exceptions "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError "Link to this definition")
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[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError.code "Link to this definition")
A numeric error code from the expat parser. See the documentation of [`xml.parsers.expat`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pyexpat.html#module-xml.parsers.expat "xml.parsers.expat: An interface to the Expat non-validating XML parser.") for the list of error codes and their meanings.
position[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError.position "Link to this definition")
A tuple of *line*, *column* numbers, specifying where the error occurred.
Footnotes
\[1\] ([1](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id1),[2](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id2),[3](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id6),[4](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id8))
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>.
### [Table of Contents](https://docs.python.org/3/contents.html)
- [`xml.etree.ElementTree` — The ElementTree XML API](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html)
- [Tutorial](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#tutorial)
- [XML tree and elements](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml-tree-and-elements)
- [Parsing XML](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#parsing-xml)
- [Pull API for non-blocking parsing](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#pull-api-for-non-blocking-parsing)
- [Finding interesting elements](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#finding-interesting-elements)
- [Modifying an XML File](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#modifying-an-xml-file)
- [Building XML documents](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#building-xml-documents)
- [Parsing XML with Namespaces](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#parsing-xml-with-namespaces)
- [XPath support](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xpath-support)
- [Example](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#example)
- [Supported XPath syntax](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#supported-xpath-syntax)
- [Reference](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#reference)
- [Functions](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#functions)
- [XInclude support](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xinclude-support)
- [Example](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id3)
- [Reference](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id4)
- [Functions](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementinclude-functions)
- [Element Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#element-objects)
- [ElementTree Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-objects)
- [QName Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#qname-objects)
- [TreeBuilder Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#treebuilder-objects)
- [XMLParser Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xmlparser-objects)
- [XMLPullParser Objects](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xmlpullparser-objects)
- [Exceptions](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#exceptions)
#### Previous topic
[XML Processing Modules](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.html "previous chapter")
#### Next topic
[`xml.dom` — The Document Object Model API](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.dom.html "next chapter")
### This page
- [Report a bug](https://docs.python.org/3/bugs.html)
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| Readable Markdown | **Source code:** [Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py](https://github.com/python/cpython/tree/3.14/Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py)
***
The `xml.etree.ElementTree` module implements a simple and efficient API for parsing and creating XML data.
Changed in version 3.3: This module will use a fast implementation whenever available.
Deprecated since version 3.3: The `xml.etree.cElementTree` module is deprecated.
Note
If you need to parse untrusted or unauthenticated data, see [XML security](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.html#xml-security).
## Tutorial[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#tutorial "Link to this heading")
This is a short tutorial for using `xml.etree.ElementTree` (`ET` in short). The goal is to demonstrate some of the building blocks and basic concepts of the module.
### XML tree and elements[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml-tree-and-elements "Link to this heading")
XML is an inherently hierarchical data format, and the most natural way to represent it is with a tree. `ET` has two classes for this purpose - [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") represents the whole XML document as a tree, and [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") represents a single node in this tree. Interactions with the whole document (reading and writing to/from files) are usually done on the `ElementTree` level. Interactions with a single XML element and its sub-elements are done on the `Element` level.
### Parsing XML[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#parsing-xml "Link to this heading")
We’ll be using the fictive `country_data.xml` XML document as the sample data for this section:
```
<?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>
```
We can import this data by reading from a file:
```
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
tree = ET.parse('country_data.xml')
root = tree.getroot()
```
Or directly from a string:
```
root = ET.fromstring(country_data_as_string)
```
[`fromstring()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring "xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring") parses XML from a string directly into an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"), which is the root element of the parsed tree. Other parsing functions may create an [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree"). Check the documentation to be sure.
As an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element"), `root` has a tag and a dictionary of attributes:
```
>>> root.tag
'data'
>>> root.attrib
{}
```
It also has children nodes over which we can iterate:
```
>>> for child in root:
... print(child.tag, child.attrib)
...
country {'name': 'Liechtenstein'}
country {'name': 'Singapore'}
country {'name': 'Panama'}
```
Children are nested, and we can access specific child nodes by index:
```
>>> root[0][1].text
'2008'
```
Note
Not all elements of the XML input will end up as elements of the parsed tree. Currently, this module skips over any XML comments, processing instructions, and document type declarations in the input. Nevertheless, trees built using this module’s API rather than parsing from XML text can have comments and processing instructions in them; they will be included when generating XML output. A document type declaration may be accessed by passing a custom [`TreeBuilder`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder "xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder") instance to the [`XMLParser`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") constructor.
### Pull API for non-blocking parsing[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#pull-api-for-non-blocking-parsing "Link to this heading")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") objects.
The most powerful tool for doing this is [`XMLPullParser`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser"). It does not require a blocking read to obtain the XML data, and is instead fed with data incrementally with [`XMLPullParser.feed()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.feed "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.feed") calls. To get the parsed XML elements, call [`XMLPullParser.read_events()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events "xml.etree.ElementTree.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
mytag text= sometext more text
```
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse "xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse"). It can be useful when you’re reading a large XML document and don’t want to hold it wholly in memory.
Where *immediate* feedback through events is wanted, calling method [`XMLPullParser.flush()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.flush "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.flush") can help reduce delay; please make sure to study the related security notes.
### Finding interesting elements[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#finding-interesting-elements "Link to this heading")
[`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") has some useful methods that help iterate recursively over all the sub-tree below it (its children, their children, and so on). For example, [`Element.iter()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter "xml.etree.ElementTree.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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall") finds only elements with a tag which are direct children of the current element. [`Element.find()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find") finds the *first* child with a particular tag, and [`Element.text`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text") accesses the element’s text content. [`Element.get()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.get "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.get") accesses the element’s attributes:
```
>>> for country in root.findall('country'):
... rank = country.find('rank').text
... name = country.get('name')
... print(name, rank)
...
Liechtenstein 1
Singapore 4
Panama 68
```
More sophisticated specification of which elements to look for is possible by using [XPath](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-xpath).
### Modifying an XML File[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#modifying-an-xml-file "Link to this heading")
[`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") provides a simple way to build XML documents and write them to files. The [`ElementTree.write()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write") method serves this purpose.
Once created, an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") object may be manipulated by directly changing its fields (such as [`Element.text`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text")), adding and modifying attributes ([`Element.set()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.set "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.set") method), as well as adding new children (for example with [`Element.append()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.append "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.append")).
Let’s say we want to add one to each country’s rank, and add an `updated` attribute to the rank element:
```
>>> 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')
```
Our XML now looks like this:
```
<?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>
```
We can remove elements using [`Element.remove()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.remove "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.remove"). Let’s say we want to remove all countries with a rank higher than 50:
```
>>> 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.
Our XML now looks like this:
```
<?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>
```
### Building XML documents[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#building-xml-documents "Link to this heading")
The [`SubElement()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement "xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement") function also provides a convenient way to create new sub-elements for a given element:
```
>>> 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>
```
### Parsing XML with Namespaces[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#parsing-xml-with-namespaces "Link to this heading")
If the XML input has [namespaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_namespace), 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](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-names/#defaulting), 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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find") or [`findall()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.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
```
## XPath support[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xpath-support "Link to this heading")
This module provides limited support for [XPath expressions](https://www.w3.org/TR/xpath) 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.
### Example[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#example "Link to this heading")
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](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-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")
```
### Supported XPath syntax[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#supported-xpath-syntax "Link to this heading")
| Syntax | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `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. Changed in version 3.8: Support for star-wildcards was added. |
| `*` | Selects all child elements, including comments and processing instructions. For example, `*/egg` selects all grandchildren named `egg`. |
| `.` | Selects the current node. This is mostly useful at the beginning of the path, to indicate that it’s a relative path. |
| `//` | 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]` | Selects all elements that have the given attribute. |
| `[@attrib='value']` | Selects all elements for which the given attribute has the given value. The value cannot contain quotes. |
| `[@attrib!='value']` | Selects all elements for which the given attribute does not have the given value. The value cannot contain quotes. Added in version 3.10. |
| `[tag]` | Selects all elements that have a child named `tag`. Only immediate children are supported. |
| `[.='text']` | Selects all elements whose complete text content, including descendants, equals the given `text`. Added in version 3.7. |
| `[.!='text']` | Selects all elements whose complete text content, including descendants, does not equal the given `text`. Added in version 3.10. |
| `[tag='text']` | Selects all elements that have a child named `tag` whose complete text content, including descendants, equals the given `text`. |
| `[tag!='text']` | Selects all elements that have a child named `tag` whose complete text content, including descendants, does not equal the given `text`. Added in version 3.10. |
| `[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`). |
Predicates (expressions within square brackets) must be preceded by a tag name, an asterisk, or another predicate. `position` predicates must be preceded by a tag name.
## Reference[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#reference "Link to this heading")
### Functions[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#functions "Link to this heading")
xml.etree.ElementTree.canonicalize(*xml\_data\=None*, *\**, *out\=None*, *from\_file\=None*, *\*\*options*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.canonicalize "Link to this definition")
[C14N 2.0](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n2/) transformation function.
Canonicalization is a way to normalise XML output in a way that allows byte-by-byte comparisons and digital signatures. It reduces 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.
Typical uses:
```
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
(default: false)
- *rewrite\_prefixes*: set to true to replace namespace prefixes by “n{number}”
(default: false)
- *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.
Added in version 3.8.
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") skips over comments in the input instead of creating comment objects for them. An [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") will only contain comment nodes if they have been inserted into to the tree using one of the [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") methods.
xml.etree.ElementTree.dump(*elem*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.dump "Link to this definition")
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.
Changed in version 3.8: The `dump()` function now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.
xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring(*text*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring "Link to this definition")
Parses an XML section from a string constant. Same as [`XML()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XML "xml.etree.ElementTree.XML"). *text* is a string containing XML data. *parser* is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard [`XMLParser`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. Returns an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance.
xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstringlist(*sequence*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstringlist "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. Returns an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance.
Added in version 3.2.
xml.etree.ElementTree.indent(*tree*, *space\=' '*, *level\=0*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.indent "Link to this definition")
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*.
Added in version 3.9.
xml.etree.ElementTree.iselement(*element*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.iselement "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.iterparse "Link to this definition")
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](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. *parser* must be a subclass of `XMLParser` and can only use the default [`TreeBuilder`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder "xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder") as a target. Returns an [iterator](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-iterator) providing `(event, elem)` pairs; it has a `root` attribute that references the root element of the resulting XML tree once *source* is fully read. The iterator has the `close()` method that closes the internal file object if *source* is a filename.
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser").
Note
`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.
Deprecated since version 3.4: The *parser* argument.
Changed in version 3.8: The `comment` and `pi` events were added.
Changed in version 3.13: Added the `close()` method.
xml.etree.ElementTree.parse(*source*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.parse "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. Returns an [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") instance.
xml.etree.ElementTree.ProcessingInstruction(*target*, *text\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ProcessingInstruction "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") skips over processing instructions in the input instead of creating PI objects for them. An [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") will only contain processing instruction nodes if they have been inserted into to the tree using one of the [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") methods.
xml.etree.ElementTree.register\_namespace(*prefix*, *uri*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.register_namespace "Link to this definition")
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.
Added in version 3.2.
xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement(*parent*, *tag*, *attrib\={}*, *\*\*extra*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.tostring "Link to this definition")
Generates a string representation of an XML element, including all subelements. *element* is an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance. *encoding* [\[1\]](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id9) 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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write"). Returns an (optionally) encoded string containing the XML data.
Changed in version 3.4: Added the *short\_empty\_elements* parameter.
Changed in version 3.8: Added the *xml\_declaration* and *default\_namespace* parameters.
Changed in version 3.8: 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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.tostringlist "Link to this definition")
Generates a string representation of an XML element, including all subelements. *element* is an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance. *encoding* [\[1\]](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id9) 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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write "xml.etree.ElementTree.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)`.
Added in version 3.2.
Changed in version 3.4: Added the *short\_empty\_elements* parameter.
Changed in version 3.8: Added the *xml\_declaration* and *default\_namespace* parameters.
Changed in version 3.8: The `tostringlist()` function now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.
xml.etree.ElementTree.XML(*text*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XML "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. Returns an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance.
xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLID(*text*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLID "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser") parser is used. Returns a tuple containing an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance and a dictionary.
## XInclude support[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xinclude-support "Link to this heading")
This module provides limited support for [XInclude directives](https://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude/), via the [`xml.etree.ElementInclude`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#module-xml.etree.ElementInclude "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.
### Example[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id3 "Link to this heading")
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>
```
The result might look something like:
```
<document xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
Copyright (c) 2003.
</document>
```
## Reference[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id4 "Link to this heading")
### Functions[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementinclude-functions "Link to this heading")
xml.etree.ElementInclude.default\_loader(*href*, *parse*, *encoding\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementInclude.default_loader "Link to this definition")
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 [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance. If the parse mode is `"text"`, this is a 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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementInclude.include "Link to this definition")
This function expands XInclude directives in-place in tree pointed by *elem*. *elem* is either the root [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") or an [`ElementTree`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree") instance to find such element. *loader* is an optional resource loader. If omitted, it defaults to [`default_loader()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementInclude.default_loader "xml.etree.ElementInclude.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 `None` to disable the limitation.
Changed in version 3.9: Added the *base\_url* and *max\_depth* parameters.
### Element Objects[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#element-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.Element(*tag*, *attrib\={}*, *\*\*extra*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "Link to this definition")
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[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.tag "Link to this definition")
A string identifying what kind of data this element represents (the element type, in other words).
text[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.text "Link to this definition")
tail[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.tail "Link to this definition")
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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.itertext "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.itertext"), for example `"".join(element.itertext())`.
Applications may store arbitrary objects in these attributes.
attrib[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.attrib "Link to this definition")
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()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.clear "Link to this definition")
Resets an element. This function removes all subelements, clears all attributes, and sets the text and tail attributes to `None`.
get(*key*, *default\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.get "Link to this definition")
Gets the element attribute named *key*.
Returns the attribute value, or *default* if the attribute was not found.
items()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.items "Link to this definition")
Returns the element attributes as a sequence of (name, value) pairs. The attributes are returned in an arbitrary order.
keys()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.keys "Link to this definition")
Returns the elements attribute names as a list. The names are returned in an arbitrary order.
set(*key*, *value*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.set "Link to this definition")
Set the attribute *key* on the element to *value*.
The following methods work on the element’s children (subelements).
append(*subelement*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.append "Link to this definition")
Adds the element *subelement* to the end of this element’s internal list of subelements. Raises [`TypeError`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#TypeError "TypeError") if *subelement* is not an `Element`.
extend(*subelements*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.extend "Link to this definition")
Appends *subelements* from an iterable of elements. Raises [`TypeError`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#TypeError "TypeError") if a subelement is not an `Element`.
Added in version 3.2.
find(*match*, *namespaces\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find "Link to this definition")
Finds the first subelement matching *match*. *match* may be a tag name or a [path](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-xpath). 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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall "Link to this definition")
Finds all matching subelements, by tag name or [path](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-xpath). 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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findtext "Link to this definition")
Finds text for the first subelement matching *match*. *match* may be a tag name or a [path](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-xpath). 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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.insert "Link to this definition")
Inserts *subelement* at the given position in this element. Raises [`TypeError`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#TypeError "TypeError") if *subelement* is not an `Element`.
iter(*tag\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iter "Link to this definition")
Creates a tree [iterator](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-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.
Added in version 3.2.
iterfind(*match*, *namespaces\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iterfind "Link to this definition")
Finds all matching subelements, by tag name or [path](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-xpath). Returns an iterable yielding all matching elements in document order. *namespaces* is an optional mapping from namespace prefix to full name.
Added in version 3.2.
itertext()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.itertext "Link to this definition")
Creates a text iterator. The iterator loops over this element and all subelements, in document order, and returns all inner text.
Added in version 3.2.
makeelement(*tag*, *attrib*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.makeelement "Link to this definition")
Creates a new element object of the same type as this element. Do not call this method, use the [`SubElement()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement "xml.etree.ElementTree.SubElement") factory function instead.
remove(*subelement*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.remove "Link to this definition")
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__()`](https://docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html#object.__delitem__ "object.__delitem__"), [`__getitem__()`](https://docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html#object.__getitem__ "object.__getitem__"), [`__setitem__()`](https://docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html#object.__setitem__ "object.__setitem__"), [`__len__()`](https://docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html#object.__len__ "object.__len__").
Caution: Elements with no subelements will test as `False`. In a future release of Python, all elements will test as `True` regardless of whether subelements exist. Instead, prefer explicit `len(elem)` or `elem is not None` tests.:
```
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")
```
Changed in version 3.12: Testing the truth value of an Element emits [`DeprecationWarning`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#DeprecationWarning "DeprecationWarning").
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](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-infoset/) 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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.canonicalize "xml.etree.ElementTree.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 Objects[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#elementtree-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree(*element\=None*, *file\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree._setroot "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.find "Link to this definition")
Same as [`Element.find()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.find"), starting at the root of the tree.
findall(*match*, *namespaces\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.findall "Link to this definition")
Same as [`Element.findall()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findall"), starting at the root of the tree.
findtext(*match*, *default\=None*, *namespaces\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.findtext "Link to this definition")
Same as [`Element.findtext()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findtext "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.findtext"), starting at the root of the tree.
getroot()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.getroot "Link to this definition")
Returns the root element for this tree.
iter(*tag\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.iter "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.iterfind "Link to this definition")
Same as [`Element.iterfind()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iterfind "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element.iterfind"), starting at the root of the tree.
Added in version 3.2.
parse(*source*, *parser\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.parse "Link to this definition")
Loads an external XML section into this element tree. *source* is a file name or [file object](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-file-object). *parser* is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard [`XMLParser`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree.write "Link to this definition")
Writes the element tree to a file, as XML. *file* is a file name, or a [file object](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-file-object) opened for writing. *encoding* [\[1\]](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id9) 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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str "str")) or binary ([`bytes`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#bytes "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](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-file-object); make sure you do not try to write a string to a binary stream and vice versa.
Changed in version 3.4: Added the *short\_empty\_elements* parameter.
Changed in version 3.8: 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[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#qname-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.QName(*text\_or\_uri*, *tag\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.QName "Link to this definition")
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[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#treebuilder-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder(*element\_factory\=None*, *\**, *comment\_factory\=None*, *pi\_factory\=None*, *insert\_comments\=False*, *insert\_pis\=False*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder "Link to this definition")
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()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Comment "xml.etree.ElementTree.Comment") and [`ProcessingInstruction()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ProcessingInstruction "xml.etree.ElementTree.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()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.close "Link to this definition")
Flushes the builder buffers, and returns the toplevel document element. Returns an [`Element`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.Element") instance.
data(*data*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.data "Link to this definition")
Adds text to the current element. *data* is a string. This should be either a bytestring, or a Unicode string.
end(*tag*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.end "Link to this definition")
Closes the current element. *tag* is the element name. Returns the closed element.
start(*tag*, *attrs*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.start "Link to this definition")
Opens a new element. *tag* is the element name. *attrs* is a dictionary containing element attributes. Returns the opened element.
Creates a comment with the given *text*. If `insert_comments` is true, this will also add it to the tree.
Added in version 3.8.
pi(*target*, *text*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.pi "Link to this definition")
Creates a process instruction with the given *target* name and *text*. If `insert_pis` is true, this will also add it to the tree.
Added in version 3.8.
In addition, a custom `TreeBuilder` object can provide the following methods:
doctype(*name*, *pubid*, *system*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.doctype "Link to this definition")
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.
Added in version 3.2.
start\_ns(*prefix*, *uri*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.start_ns "Link to this definition")
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.
Added in version 3.8.
end\_ns(*prefix*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder.end_ns "Link to this definition")
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.
Added in version 3.8.
*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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.C14NWriterTarget "Link to this definition")
A [C14N 2.0](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n2/) writer. Arguments are the same as for the [`canonicalize()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.canonicalize "xml.etree.ElementTree.canonicalize") function. This class does not build a tree but translates the callback events directly into a serialised form using the *write* function.
Added in version 3.8.
### XMLParser Objects[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xmlparser-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser(*\**, *target\=None*, *encoding\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "Link to this definition")
This class is the low-level building block of the module. It uses [`xml.parsers.expat`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pyexpat.html#module-xml.parsers.expat "xml.parsers.expat: An interface to the Expat non-validating XML parser.") for efficient, event-based parsing of XML. It can be fed XML data incrementally with the [`feed()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder "xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder") is used. If *encoding* [\[1\]](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#id9) is given, the value overrides the encoding specified in the XML file.
Changed in version 3.8: Parameters are now [keyword-only](https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#keyword-only-parameter). The *html* argument is no longer supported.
close()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close "Link to this definition")
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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed "Link to this definition")
Feeds data to the parser. *data* is encoded data.
flush()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.flush "Link to this definition")
Triggers parsing of any previously fed unparsed data, which can be used to ensure more immediate feedback, in particular with Expat \>=2.6.0. The implementation of `flush()` temporarily disables reparse deferral with Expat (if currently enabled) and triggers a reparse. Disabling reparse deferral has security consequences; please see [`xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pyexpat.html#xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled "xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled") for details.
Note that `flush()` has been backported to some prior releases of CPython as a security fix. Check for availability of `flush()` using [`hasattr()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#hasattr "hasattr") if used in code running across a variety of Python versions.
Added in version 3.13.
[`XMLParser.feed()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.feed "xml.etree.ElementTree.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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder "xml.etree.ElementTree.TreeBuilder") class. [`XMLParser.close()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close "xml.etree.ElementTree.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 Objects[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xmlpullparser-objects "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser(*events\=None*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser "Link to this definition")
A pull parser suitable for non-blocking applications. Its input-side API is similar to that of [`XMLParser`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser "xml.etree.ElementTree.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*)[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.feed "Link to this definition")
Feed the given bytes data to the parser.
flush()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.flush "Link to this definition")
Triggers parsing of any previously fed unparsed data, which can be used to ensure more immediate feedback, in particular with Expat \>=2.6.0. The implementation of `flush()` temporarily disables reparse deferral with Expat (if currently enabled) and triggers a reparse. Disabling reparse deferral has security consequences; please see [`xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pyexpat.html#xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled "xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled") for details.
Note that `flush()` has been backported to some prior releases of CPython as a security fix. Check for availability of `flush()` using [`hasattr()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#hasattr "hasattr") if used in code running across a variety of Python versions.
Added in version 3.13.
close()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.close "Link to this definition")
Signal the parser that the data stream is terminated. Unlike [`XMLParser.close()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLParser.close"), this method always returns [`None`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/constants.html#None "None"). Any events not yet retrieved when the parser is closed can still be read with [`read_events()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events "xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events").
read\_events()[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.XMLPullParser.read_events "Link to this definition")
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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.Element "xml.etree.ElementTree.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`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/constants.html#None "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.
Note
`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.
Added in version 3.4.
Changed in version 3.8: The `comment` and `pi` events were added.
### Exceptions[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#exceptions "Link to this heading")
*class* xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError "Link to this definition")
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[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError.code "Link to this definition")
A numeric error code from the expat parser. See the documentation of [`xml.parsers.expat`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pyexpat.html#module-xml.parsers.expat "xml.parsers.expat: An interface to the Expat non-validating XML parser.") for the list of error codes and their meanings.
position[¶](https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError.position "Link to this definition")
A tuple of *line*, *column* numbers, specifying where the error occurred.
Footnotes |
| Shard | 16 (laksa) |
| Root Hash | 10954876678907435016 |
| Unparsed URL | org,python!docs,/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html s443 |