Problem with "&" charater in xml.

[Kirt]

i have walked a directory and have written the foll xml document.
one of the folder had "&" character so i replaced it by "&"
#------------------test1.xml
<Directory>
  <dirname>C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\1\bye
w&y </dirname>
  <file>
  <name>def.txt</name>
  <time>200607130417</time>
  </file>
</Directory>
 <Directory>
  <dirname>C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\1\hii
wx</dirname>
  <file>
  <name>abc.txt</name>
  <time>200607130415</time>
  </file>
</Directory

now in my python code i want to parse this doc and print the directory
name.
###----------handler------------filename---handler.py
from xml.sax.handler import ContentHandler
class oldHandler(ContentHandler):
               def __init__(self):
  			self.dn = 0
                def startElement(self, name, attrs):
			if name=='dirname':
				self.dn=1

		def characters(self,str):
			if self.dn:
                               print str

                def endElement(self, name):
			if name == 'dirname':
                         	self.dn=0


#---------------------------------------------------------------------
#main code--- fname----art.py
import sys
from xml.sax 	import 	make_parser
from handlers import	oldHandler

ch = oldHandler()
saxparser = make_parser()

saxparser.setContentHandler(ch)
saxparser.parse(sys.argv[1])
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
i run the code as:  $python art.py test1.xml

i am getting output as:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\1\bye w
&
y
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\1\hii wx

where as i need an output which should look like this.
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\1\bye w&y

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\1\hii wx

Can someone tell me the solution for this.