Elementtree 1.3 and xpath

[Fredrik Lundh]

Andrew Lonie wrote:

> Hi I noticed that the xpath functionality of elementtree has been
> upgraded in version 1.3. However I can't seem to get the [postion]
> predicate to function. All the other new functionality seems to be
> working.

ET 1.3 is only available in an early alpha yet, and the posted release 
only supports the [tag] form; from the CHANGES document:

- Added new path engine, for "find", "findall", and "findtext".  The
   new engine is a bit faster, and supports a number of predicates
   forms: [@attr], [@attr='value'], and [tag] (in the last case, only
   single tag names are supported).  The engine also provides limited
   support for the ".." parent selector; you can use it inside the
   subtree, but it cannot go above the context element (the element
   you called "find" on).

The next alpha will be out in February, and will do the right thing with 
your example:

 >>> from elementtree import ElementTree as ET
 >>> xml = ET.XML("""<root><tag att="1">text</tag><tag 
att="2">text2</tag></root>""")
 >>> ET.tostring(xml.find("tag[@att]"))
'<tag att="1">text</tag>'
 >>> ET.tostring(xml.find("tag[@att]/.."))
'<root><tag att="1">text</tag><tag att="2">text2</tag></root>'
 >>> ET.tostring(xml.find("tag[1]"))
'<tag att="1">text</tag>'

</F>