8.13 xml.etree.ElementTree -- The ElementTree XML API

Python 2.5

8.13 xml.etree.ElementTree -- The ElementTree XML API

New in version 2.5.

The Element type is a flexible container object, designed to store hierarchical data structures in memory. The type can be described as a cross between a list and a dictionary.

Each element has a number of properties associated with it:

  • a tag which is a string identifying what kind of data this element represents (the element type, in other words).
  • a number of attributes, stored in a Python dictionary.
  • a text string.
  • an optional tail string.
  • a number of child elements, stored in a Python sequence

To create an element instance, use the Element or SubElement factory functions.

The ElementTree class can be used to wrap an element structure, and convert it from and to XML.

A C implementation of this API is available as xml.etree.cElementTree.


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