simple output of xml from python

Question

I need to output XML from python in a very minimalist way:

I can't use any external libraries beyond what's already in Python 2.6.5
I need to output XML tags, and text contents, with no attributes

At this point I'm using print statements to explicitly print out angle-bracket tags, and the only thing really stopping me is escaping text within a tag, which I do not know how to do.

Any suggestions?

update: Is there anything like Java's StAX XMLStreamWriter for Python? I may have a large XML document to produce, and I don't need (or want) to hold the entire document in memory.

update #2: I also need to escape random unicode or non-ASCII characters in the text besides <, > and &.

Why do you think that you need to escape "random" unicode or non-ASCII characters? Can't you just encode it in UTF-8? — John Machin
– John Machin, Commented Dec 22, 2010 at 21:03

Jason S · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-22 20:56:38Z

4

Well, it looks like SAX isn't that hard to use after all. Here's an example.

xmltest.py:

import xml.sax.xmlreader
import xml.sax.saxutils

def testJunk(file, e2content):
  attr0 = xml.sax.xmlreader.AttributesImpl({})
  x =  xml.sax.saxutils.XMLGenerator(file)
  x.startDocument()
  x.startElement("document", attr0)

  x.startElement("element1", attr0)
  x.characters("bingo")
  x.endElement("element1")

  x.startElement("element2", attr0)
  x.characters(e2content)
  x.endElement("element2")

  x.endElement("document")
  x.endDocument()

tested:

>>> import xmltest
>>> xmltest.testJunk(open("test.xml","w"), "wham < 3!")

produces:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<document><element1>bingo</element1><element2>wham &lt; 3!</element2></document>

answered Dec 22, 2010 at 20:56

Jason S

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2 Comments

John Machin Over a year ago

You need to use x = xml.sax.saxutils.XMLGenerator(file, "UTF-8") and you need to feed it unicode objects (or str objects that contain only ASCII) in a considered non-random fashion. If you have text in some legacy encoding e.g. cp1252, then decode it before stuffing it into x.characters()

John Machin Over a year ago

Also for portability you should use "wb" in your file open() call.

barti_ddu · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-22 18:23:10Z

2

If task is as simple, minidom may suffice. Here goes short example:

from xml.dom.minidom import Document

# create xml document
document = Document()

# create root element
root = document.createElement("root")
document.appendChild(root)

# create child element
child = document.createElement("child")
child.setAttribute("tag", "test")
root.appendChild(child)

# insert some text
atext = document.createTextNode("Foo bar")
child.appendChild(atext)

# print created xml
print(document.toprettyxml(indent="    "))

answered Dec 22, 2010 at 18:23

barti_ddu

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1 Comment

Jason S Over a year ago

+1 for the quick example. I can't use it for my particular application, as I have a potentially large XML file to produce + don't need to hold/manipulate a DOM-style XML object in memory.

Mark Tolonen · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-22 18:26:45Z

2

ElementTree comes with Python 2.6:

from xml.etree import ElementTree as ET
root = ET.Element('root')
sub = ET.SubElement(root,'sub')
sub.text = 'Hello & Goodbye'
tree = ET.ElementTree(root)
tree.write('out.xml')
# OR
ET.dump(root)

Output

<root><sub>Hello &amp; Goodbye</sub></root>

answered Dec 22, 2010 at 18:26

Mark Tolonen

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Comments

khachik · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-22 17:57:25Z

1

xml.sax.saxutils.escape(data[, entities]).

answered Dec 22, 2010 at 17:57

khachik

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1 Comment

Jason S Over a year ago

That only escapes <, >, & plus specific entities. If I have any random unicode or ASCII characters, I need to escape them too.

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