Python and XML
A variety of XML processing solutions are available for Python. This page attempts to list the major tools.
Packages in the standard library
The standard library has a number of tools available, which fall into mainly three categories:
- a pythonesque, simple-to-use and very fast XML tree library:
ElementTree - the xml.etree package (new in Python 2.5 but available for older versions, also see the fast xml.etree.cElementTree and the independent implementation lxml)
- event-driven XML parsers:
ElementTree's iterparse() - a fast and easy-to-use event-driven parser with a high-level XML tree interface
- pyexpat - a fast, low-level XML parser with an event-based callback interface
Sax - the xml.sax package, a Python implementation of the well-known low-level SAX API
- XML tree libraries that adhere to the W3C DOM standard:
The DOM and SAX packages have the advantage of being compatible with standard or de facto standard APIs, so users who are already familiar with these APIs can use them without learning too many new things. Everyone else should start with the faster and more pythonic ElementTree library, which is very well integrated into the Python language, and therefore very easy to learn and use.
External packages
A long list of special purpose and general purpose Python XML packages is available from PyPI. The following is a choice of major tools that support a broader set of XML features.
Pythonic tools
lxml - a pythonic, ElementTree-compatible binding for the libxml2 and libxslt libraries that comes with all sorts of powerful XML (and HTML) tools, well integrated into an easy-to-use Python API
lxml.objectify - a Python object API for XML based on lxml
PyXB - generates Python classes/modules that correspond to data structures/namespaces defined by XMLSchema, with validation
PyXSD - an XML Schema mapping too (somewhat dated, last released in 2006)
generateDS - generates Python data structures (for example, class definitions) from an XML Schema document
Amara 2.x - Amara provides tools you can trust to conform with XML standards without losing the familiar Python feel
W3C DOM-like libraries
PyXML - external add-on to Python's original XML support - (Warning: no longer maintained, does not work with recent Python versions)
itools.xml - itools provides XML processing support in a fashion similar to that of PullDom
libxml2dom - PyXML-style API for the libxml2 Python bindings
qtxmldom - PyXML-style API for the qtxml Python bindings
4Suite - a framework for XML (and RDF) processing
XPath Support
py-dom-xpath - pure Python XPath implementation for use with DOM libraries
lxml - lxml has standards compliant XPath 1.0 support based on libxml2. It also supports the EXSLT extensions (including Python regular expressions) and allows calling Python functions from within XPath expressions.
Amara 2.x - Amara exposes an API to fully-compliant XPath (including EXSLT)
SaxonC from Saxonica includes a Python API with full support for XPath 3.1.
XSLT Support
If not mentioned otherwise, this means XSLT 1.0, not XSLT 2.0.
lxml has excellent (and easy-to-use) XSLT support that is based on libxslt. It also supports calling into Python code from XSL transformations through both XPath and XSLT extensions.
XSLTools - XSL transformations on top of libxslt and libxml2dom, with added Web development support
Some tools linked from the XQuery homepage provide Python bindings for their XSLT2 and XPath2 implementations
Amara 2.x - Amara exposes an API to fully-compliant XSLT (including EXSLT)
SaxonC from Saxonica includes a Python API with full support for XSLT 3.0
XML-based Communications
jabber.py - a Python module for the jabber instant messaging protocol
PyXMPP - a Python XMPP (RFC 3920,3921) and Jabber implementation
xmpppy - a Python library that is targeted to provide easy scripting with Jabber
Web Services
Object Serialization in XML
pyxser - a Python extension to serialize/deserialize Python objects into XML
Books and Articles
SIG
Editorial Notes
The above lists should be arranged in ascending alphabetical order - please respect this when adding new entries. When specifying release dates please use the format YYYY-MM-DD.