[Python-Dev] xml.etree.ElementTree.IncrementalParser (was: ElementTree iterparse string)

[Stefan Behnel]

[from python-ideas]

Antoine Pitrou, 07.08.2013 08:04:
> Take a look at IncrementalParser:
> http://docs.python.org/dev/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#incremental-parsing

Hmm, that seems to be a somewhat recent addition (April 2013). I would have
preferred hearing about it before it got added.

I don't like the fact that it adds a second interface to iterparse() that
allows injecting arbitrary content into the parser. You can now run
iterparse() to read from a file, and at an arbitrary iteration position,
send it a byte string to parse from, before it goes reading more data from
the file. Or take out some events before iteration continues.

I think the implementation should be changed to make iterparse() return
something that wraps an IncrementalParser, not something that is an
IncrementalParser.

Also, IMO it should mimic the interface of the TreeBuilder, which calls the
data reception method "data()" and the termination method "close()". There
is no reason to add yet another set of methods names just to do what others
do already.

Stefan