[lxml-dev] how knowing the types return by .xpath

[Stefan Behnel]

Sergio Monteiro Basto wrote:
>  isinstance(lxml.etree._ElementUnicodeResult, basestring) is true
> and
> isinstance(xml.etree._Element, basestring) is false
>
> which resolve my initial problem
>
> but what instance is xml.etree._Element ?

    etree.iselement(an_element)

is True for elements, but also for PIs, comments and entities (if you
configured the parser to leave entities in).

    isinstance(element.tag, basestring)

is True only for Elements (and entities, IIRC).

Stefan