How to parse XML data as string instead of dictionary using Python XML ElementTree library-CodePudding

'I want to parse an XML file using the Python XML ElementTree library.

XML data example:

<stat pass="2" fail="1" skip="0" id="s1-s2" name="Webview">Test passed</stat>

I would like to parse the XML data in the exact format as in the XML file and store as a Python string, so:

string = '<stat pass="2" fail="1" skip="0" id="s1-s2" name="Bankwebview">Test passed</stat>'

At the moment, I have only came across the .attrib method and .text method which gives me the following format:

def extract_testcase(xml_file):
    tree = ET.parse(xml_file)
    root = tree.getroot()

    #Get root <robot> data
    root_att = root.attrib    # {'pass':'2', 'fail':'1', 'skip':'0', 'id'='s1-s2', 'name'='Webview'}
    root_text = root.text     # 'Test passed'

In which I will need to manipulate the data again to get my desired string. Is there a function in ElementTree for my intended output?

CodePudding user response：

To get the value of an attribute there is a function Element.get('name') in xml.etree.ElementTree. You can use Element.set('name','value') to manipulate the attribute value of a XML byte Element (Doc).

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

xml = """<stat pass="2" fail="1" skip="0" id="s1-s2" name="Webview">Test passed</stat>"""

def extract_testcase(xml_string):
    x_st = ET.fromstring(xml)
    x_st.set('name', 'Bankwebview')
    return ET.tostring(x_st).decode('utf-8')
    
print("Input string: ", xml)
xml_new = extract_testcase(xml)
print("Output string",xml_new)

Print:

Input string:  <stat pass="2" fail="1" skip="0" id="s1-s2" name="Webview">Test passed</stat>
Output string: <stat pass="2" fail="1" skip="0" id="s1-s2" name="Bankwebview">Test passed</stat>

CodePudding user response：

My understanding is that you want to read the XML into a string, without really parsing it. You could do it with a regular file access in Python:

with open("my_file.xml", "r") as my_input_xml:
    my_string = my_input_xml.read()