help needed creating xml document with xml.dom

[Martin v. Loewis]

Brian Lalor <blalor at insight.com> writes:

> Good morning, all.  Several times, now, I've used xml.dom.minidom to create
> raw XML documents, but I don't think I've ever really done it the "right"
> way.  

I think that trying to create valid XML documents with DOM is
inherently wrong. Use print statements instead.

> I blame that on my seeming inability to find documentation on the
> "right" way to do it in Python, or in any language, for that matter.
> Pointers to said documentation are welcomed. :-)

Unfortunately, the DOM does not provide a way to create a Document
with an internal subset.

> Using minidom, I cannot seem to get either the namespace or doctype
> to print out.

Adding namespaces should be possible; adding a DOCTYPE declaration is
not.

>     # is this the right way, instead of directly importing xml.dom.minidom?
>     DOM = xml.dom.getDOMImplementation()

Yes, that's correct.

>     index_page.documentElement.setAttribute('xml:lang', 'en')
>     index_page.documentElement.setAttribute('lang', 'en')

If you want namespaces, you should use the namespace API:
setAttributeNS, createElementNS.

> Is this a bug in minidom, or (more likely) am I doing something wrong?  

Call it a bug. It's really a feature missing in DOM - while it *may*
work for an external DTD, there is no way to get it work with an
internal subset.

Again, using plain print statements will be easier.

Regards,
Martin