Minimally intrusive XML editing using Python

[Thomas Lotze]

Stefan Behnel wrote:

> Take a look at canonical XML (C14N). In short, that's the only way to get a
> predictable XML serialisation that can be used for textual diffs. It's
> supported by lxml.

Thank you for the pointer. IIUC, c14n is about changing an XML document so
that its textual representation is reproducible. While this representation
would certainly solve my problem if I were to deal with input that's
already in c14n form, it doesn't help me handling arbitrarily formatted
XML in a minimally intrusive way.

IOW, I don't want the XML document to obey the rules of a process, but
instead I want a process that respects the textual form my input happens
to have.

-- 
Thomas