[lxml-dev] Parsing Received XML: Getting Childs and Assign

[Stefan Behnel]

Hi,

Ram Peters wrote:
> <Library>
> <DVD id="1">
> <title>Breakfast at Tiffany's</title>
> <format>Movie</format>
> <genre>Classic</genre>
> </DVD>
> 
> <DVD id="2">
> <title>Borat</title>
> <format>Movie</format>
> <genre>Comedy</genre>
> </DVD>
> </Library>
> 
> How to parse this xml received from a client using lxml?
> I will be using lxml objectify.

At the end of this section in the docs, you will find the command that does it:

http://codespeak.net/lxml/dev/objectify.html#creating-objectify-trees

namely:

  >>> root = objectify.fromstring("<test/>")

Or, if you want to parse from a file, set up a parser as this section describes

http://codespeak.net/lxml/dev/objectify.html#setting-up-lxml-objectify

and then do something like this:

  >>> et = etree.parse(myfilename, parser)

You might also want to read the doc page on parsing:

http://codespeak.net/lxml/dev/parsing.html

> First I need to get first child (This
> is where I am stuck.)

  >>> root.DVD

> and assign it to the python model.

???

> Get second
> child and assign it to the python model, so on.   I looked at the
> documentation, it's kind of hard to grasp for a newb.

Why don't you run a loop over them?

  >>> for dvd in root.DVD:
  ...   print dvd.get("id")
  1
  2

I have a slight intuition that it might also help you to read the Python
tutorial first.

Regards,
Stefan