Help with ElementTree

[Larry Martell]

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 2:39 PM, Peter Otten <__peter__ at web.de> wrote:
> Larry Martell wrote:
>
>> I have an XML file that looks like this (this is just the pertinent
>> part, the file is huge):
>>
>> <?xml version="1.0"?>
>> <Root>
>>   <Doc Type="CCI">
>>     <Node Name="SystemConfig" Section="yes">
>>         <Node Name="Environment">
>>            <Parameter Name="ToolName">
>>               <Value>
>>                  <Default>KA21</Default>
>>                  <Current>KA21</Current>
>>              </Value>
>>            </Parameter>
>>          </Node>
>>       </Node>
>>
>>     <Node Name="Events" Section="yes">
>>        <Parameter Name="LastEventExportTime">
>>          <Value>
>>            <Default>00:00:00</Default>
>>            <Current>15/03/2014 05:56:00</Current>
>>          </Value>
>>        </Parameter>
>>     </Node>
>>   </Doc>
>> </Root>
>>
>> I would like to use ElementTree to get 2 values from this:
>>
>> SystemConfig.Environment.ToolName.Current
>> Events.LastEventExportTime.Current
>>
>> I've been trying for hours to get ElementTree to give me these 2
>> values, but nothing I do seems to work. Can anyone help me with this?
>
> Try it in the interactive interpreter, one step after another:
>
>>>> from xml.etree import ElementTree
>>>> root = ElementTree.fromstring("""<?xml version="1.0"?>
> ... <Root>
> <snip>
> ... </Root>
> ... """)
>>>> root.find("Doc")
> <Element 'Doc' at 0x7f12af916098>
>>>> root.find("Doc/Node")
> <Element 'Node' at 0x7f12af9218b8>
>>>> root.find("Doc/Node/Node/Parameter/Value/Current").text
> 'KA21'
>
> That "worked" because the Node elements involved are the first in the
> document. You may have to add more "conditions" until there is no ambiguity
> left, e. g. to pick the child node of Doc with the Name="Events" attribute:
>
>>>> root.find("Doc/Node[@Name='Events']/Parameter/Value/Current").text
> '15/03/2014 05:56:00'
>
> See
>
> https://docs.python.org/dev/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xpath-support
>
> for the details.

Thanks! I did try in the interpreter and I did look at the doc you
referenced. I just couldn't get it to do what I wanted. I understand
this a lot better now. My example XML was grossly simplified, but I
can get what I need with this syntax:

root.find("Doc/Node[@Name='Events']/Parameter[@Name='LastEventExportTime']/Value/Current").text
root.find("Doc/Node[@Name='SystemConfig']/Node[@Name='Environment']/Parameter[@Name='ToolName']/Value/Current").text