Creating XML With Python

Part 1: xml.dom.minidom Basics

There are many resources out there if you'd like to consume and parse XML with Python.  I was looking around the web for resources on producing XML with Python, and I wasn't able to find much.  Here is a pretty simple script and its output.  It will create a WML document.

from xml.dom.minidom import Document

# Create the minidom document
doc = Document()

# Create the <wml> base element
wml = doc.createElement("wml")
doc.appendChild(wml)

# Create the main <card> element
maincard = doc.createElement("card")
maincard.setAttribute("id", "main")
wml.appendChild(maincard)

# Create a <p> element
paragraph1 = doc.createElement("p")
maincard.appendChild(paragraph1)

# Give the <p> elemenet some text
ptext = doc.createTextNode("This is a test!")
paragraph1.appendChild(ptext)

# Print our newly created XML
print doc.toprettyxml(indent="  ")

(This code was highlighted by Gnu source-highlight.  You can grab a text version here.)  Here's what the above code produces:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<wml>
  <card id="main">
    <p>
      This is a test!
    </p>
  </card>
</wml>

As an aside, this XML will probably not parse on a WAP/WML mobile device, as it doesn't have a DOCTYPE.

You can see that creating arbitrary XML with the minidom is nearly trivial.  I didn't say intuitive, I said nearly trivial.  I'm sure that there are better ways of producing XML, but right now the documentation and tutorials are weak at best.  Stay tuned for more.

Links/Resources:

• Python Documentation: xml.dom.minidom, DOM Objects, DOM Example, minidom and the DOM standard.
• Dive Into Python: XML Processing (Great tutorial on parsing XML)
• Python Web Programming by Steve Holden has some information on producing and consuming XML.  I don't own it yet, but I will soon.