{{{#!python
import urllib2                                                                                                            
from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulStoneSoup                                                                              
                                                                                                                          
class City:                                                                                                               
    "A simple container of arbitrary named attributes."                                                                   
    def __init__(self, **kw):                                                                                             
        self.__dict__.update(kw)                                                                                          
    def __repr__(self):                                                                                                   
        return str(self.__dict__)                                                                                         
                                                                                                                          
def FetchCityLocations():                                                                                                 
    """A Sampling of Location Information about Cities                                                                    
                                                                                                                          
       An example of fetching XML representing information about a handful                                                
       of cities along with the state within which they reside and their                                                  
       latitude/longitude.                                                                                                
    """                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                          
    page = urllib2.urlopen("http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/python/cities.xml")                                            
    soup = BeautifulStoneSoup(page)                                                                                       
    page.close()                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                          
    cities = []                                                                                                           
    for city in soup.cities.findAll('city'):                                                                              
        c = City(                                                                                                         
                name=city['name'],                                                                                        
                state=city['state'],                                                                                      
                latitude="%s.%s%s" % (                                                                                    
                    city.lat['deg'], city.lat['min'], city.lat['dir']),                                                   
                longitude="%s.%s%s" % (                                                                                   
                    city.long['deg'], city.long['min'], city.long['dir']),                                                
                )                                                                                                         
        cities.append(c)                                                                                                  
    return cities                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                          
cities = FetchCityLocations()                                                                                             
print cities                                                                                                              
}}}

'''Note(s):'''

  This example uses standard Python except for
  [[http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/|the BeautifulSoup package]] which must be installed separately.

----

Here's a version which uses the built-in XML processing capabilities of Python:

{{{#!python
import urllib, xml.dom.minidom

class City:
    "A simple container of arbitrary named attributes."
    def __init__(self, **kw):
        self.__dict__.update(kw)
    def __repr__(self):
        return str(self.__dict__)

def FetchCityLocations():                                                                                                 
    """A Sampling of Location Information about Cities                                                                    
                                                                                                                          
       An example of fetching XML representing information about a handful                                                
       of cities along with the state within which they reside and their                                                  
       latitude/longitude.                                                                                                
    """                                                                                                                   

    f = urllib.urlopen("http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/python/cities.xml")
    d = xml.dom.minidom.parse(f)

    cities = []
    for city in d.getElementsByTagName("city"):
        attr = city.getAttribute
        lat = city.getElementsByTagName("lat")[0]
        long = city.getElementsByTagName("long")[0]
        latAttr = lat.getAttribute
        longAttr = long.getAttribute
        cities.append(
            City(
                name=attr("name"),
                state=attr("state"),
                latitude="%s.%s%s" % (
                    latAttr("deg"), latAttr("min"), latAttr("dir")
                    ),
                longitude="%s.%s%s" % (
                    longAttr("deg"), longAttr("min"), longAttr("dir")
                    )
                )
            )

    return cities

cities = FetchCityLocations()                                                                                            
print cities                                                                                                             
}}}

----
CategoryPythonInEducation