"sdf" <wqh-2 at 263.net> wrote in message news:mailman.996723367.12395.python-list at python.org... > and '',the xml file is: > <books> > book> ^^^ You're missing a '<' Also, IIRC, XML parsers are supposed to return whitespace and newlines etc. You could just ignore them in your processing code. -- André Risnes