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Python XML Processing (ElementTree)

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a markup language similar to HTML, but without predefined tags. Python's xml.etree.ElementTree module provides a simple and efficient API for parsing and creating XML data.

Importing the Module

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

Parsing XML

From a String

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

data = """
<data>
    <country name="Liechtenstein">
        <rank>1</rank>
        <year>2008</year>
        <gdppc>141100</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Austria" direction="E"/>
        <neighbor name="Switzerland" direction="W"/>
    </country>
</data>
"""

root = ET.fromstring(data)
print(root.tag) # Output: data

From a File

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

# Assuming 'country_data.xml' exists
# tree = ET.parse('country_data.xml')
# root = tree.getroot()

Accessing Elements

You can access child elements by index or iterate over them.

# Accessing child by index
country = root[0]
rank = country.find('rank').text
print(rank) # Output: 1

Attributes are accessed as a dictionary.

print(root[0].attrib)
# Output: {'name': 'Liechtenstein'}

Finding Elements

find()

Returns the first matching element.

rank = root.find(".//rank")
print(rank.text)

findall()

Returns a list of all matching elements.

for neighbor in root.iter('neighbor'):
    print(neighbor.attrib)

Modifying XML

You can modify text, attributes, and tags directly.

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

Creating XML

You can create XML trees from scratch.

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

a = ET.Element('a')
b = ET.SubElement(a, 'b')
c = ET.SubElement(a, 'c')
c.text = 'Some text'

print(ET.tostring(a, encoding='unicode'))
# Output: <a><b /><c>Some text</c></a>

programming/python/python

Created: March 17, 2026 • Last Modified: January 27, 2026