Why is there no functional xml?

[Rustom Mody]

Looking around for how to create (l)xml one sees typical tutorials like this:

https://www.blog.pythonlibrary.org/2013/04/30/python-101-intro-to-xml-parsing-with-elementtree/



Given the requirement to build up this xml:
<zAppointments reminder="15">
    <appointment>
        <begin>1181251680</begin>        
        <uid>040000008200E000</uid>
        <alarmTime>1181572063</alarmTime>
        <state></state>
        <location></location>
        <duration>1800</duration>
        <subject>Bring pizza home</subject>
    </appointment>
</zAppointments>



the way I would rather do it is thus:

[Note in actual practice the 'contents' such as 1181251680 etc would come
from suitable program variables/function-calls
]


ex = Ea("zAppointments",  {'reminder':'15'},
        E("appointment",
          En("begin", 1181251680),
          Et("uid", "040000008200E000"),
          En("alarmTime", 1181572063),
          E("state"),
          E("location"),
          En("duration",1800),
          Et("subject", "Bring pizza home")))


with the following obvious definitions:

[The function names are short so that the above becomes correspondingly readable]


from lxml.etree import Element

def Ea(tag, attrib=None, *subnodes):
    "xml node constructor"
    root = Element(tag, attrib)
    for n in subnodes:
        root.append(n)
    return root

def E(tag, *subnodes):
    "Like E but without attributes"
    root = Element(tag)
    for n in subnodes:
        root.append(n)
    return root

def Et(tag, text):
    "A pure text node"
    root = E(tag)
    root.text = text
    return root

def En(tag, text):
    "A node containing a integer"
    root = E(tag)
    root.text = str(text)
    return root


This approach seems so obvious that I find it hard to believe its not there somewhere…
Am I missing something??