"Empty" text

[André]

On Jul 8, 5:23 pm, Jan Danielsson <jan.m.daniels... at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
>    I'm using mod_python+ElementTree to build XHTML pages. But I stumbled
> across this problem:
>
> --------------------
> def foo(req, desc = None):
>
>    ...
>
>    tr = ET.SubElement(tbl, "tr")
>    th = ET.SubElement(tr, "th")
>    th.text = "Description"
>    td = ET.SubElement(tr, "td")
>    ta = ET.SubElement(td, "textarea", name="desc", rows="8",
> cols="64")
>    if desc is None:
>       desc = ''
>    ta.text = desc
> --------------------
>
>    The problem is that this generates the following code:
>
>           <tr>
>             <th>Description</th>
>             <td>
>               <textarea cols="64" name="desc" rows="8" />
>             </td>
>           </tr>
>
>    Firefox is very unhappy about the textarea not having separate
> opening and a closing tags. i.e. I need this:
>
>               <textarea cols="64" name="desc" rows="8"></textarea>
>
>    I understand the opitmization ElementTree is performing; but it seems
> there are cases when it is not the proper thing to do. Is it possible to
>  force ElementTree to output the XHTML code I need it to?
>
> --
> Kind regards,
> Jan Danielsson

I ran into the same problem and a workaround I found was to use either
ta.text = " "   or ta.text = "\n" instead of ta.text = ''.
For my application, it did the right thing; your mileage may vary.

André