Learning python by example

Python XML & XSLT

Create and add elements

from xml.dom.minidom import parseString

• creating new document, and root element at the same time.

doc = parseString(u'<top/>'.encode('UTF-8'))

• print doc.toprettyxml() will show you how it looks
• this would create:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<top/>

• Now we reference to our <top/> element by:

top_element=doc.documentElement

• We create another element by:

element1=doc.createElementNS(None,u'section1')

• Add it under our top element by:

top_element.appendChild(element1)

• Create another element and add it under element1

element1.appendChild(doc.createElementNS(None,u'subsection1'))

• How to create a text node:

text1=doc.createTextNode(u'My first text')

• Since we have no reference to subsection1. We start at reference to element1

element1.firstChild.appendChild(text1)

• add second subelement:

element1.appendChild(doc.createElementNS(None,u'subsection2'))

• create next text element, and add it to subsection2

text2=doc.createTextNode(u'My second text')
element1.lastChild.appendChild(text2)

• We are working with references. To switch text in subsections, you could do:

element1.firstChild.appendChild(text2)
element1.lastChild.appendChild(text1)