Python xml minidom. generate <text>Some text</text> element

python xml minidom
Orjanp picture Orjanp · Feb 3, 2009 · Viewed 16.5k times · Source

I have the following code.

from xml.dom.minidom import Document

doc = Document()

root = doc.createElement('root')
doc.appendChild(root)
main = doc.createElement('Text')
root.appendChild(main)

text = doc.createTextNode('Some text here')
main.appendChild(text)

print doc.toprettyxml(indent='\t')

The result is:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<root>
    <Text>
        Some text here
    </Text>
</root>

This is all fine and dandy, but what if I want the output to look like this?

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<root>
    <Text>Some text here</Text>
</root>

Can this easily be done?

Orjanp...

Answer

bobince picture bobince · Feb 3, 2009

Can this easily be done?

It depends what exact rule you want, but generally no, you get little control over pretty-printing. If you want a specific format you'll usually have to write your own walker.

The DOM Level 3 LS parameter format-pretty-print in pxdom comes pretty close to your example. Its rule is that if an element contains only a single TextNode, no extra whitespace will be added. However it (currently) uses two spaces for an indent rather than four.

>>> doc= pxdom.parseString('<a><b>c</b></a>')
>>> doc.domConfig.setParameter('format-pretty-print', True)
>>> print doc.pxdomContent
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<a>
  <b>c</b>
</a>

(Adjust encoding and output format for whatever type of serialisation you're doing.)

If that's the rule you want, and you can get away with it, you might also be able to monkey-patch minidom's Element.writexml, eg.:

>>> from xml.dom import minidom
>>> def newwritexml(self, writer, indent= '', addindent= '', newl= ''):
...     if len(self.childNodes)==1 and self.firstChild.nodeType==3:
...         writer.write(indent)
...         self.oldwritexml(writer) # cancel extra whitespace
...         writer.write(newl)
...     else:
...         self.oldwritexml(writer, indent, addindent, newl)
... 
>>> minidom.Element.oldwritexml= minidom.Element.writexml
>>> minidom.Element.writexml= newwritexml

All the usual caveats about the badness of monkey-patching apply.

Related questions

XML Parsing with Python and minidom

I'm using Python (minidom) to parse an XML file that prints a hierarchical structure that looks something like this (indentation is used here to show the significant hierarchical relationship): My Document Overview Basic Features About This Software Platforms Supported Instead, …

Read More
Reading XML using Python minidom and iterating over each node

I have an XML structure that looks like the following, but on a much larger scale: <root> <conference name='1'> <author> Bob </author> <author> Nigel </author> </…

Read More
Python XML Minidom Get element by tag in child node

I am curently working on a IRC Bot and want to retrieve the configuration from an XML file that look like this : <server> <host> HOST1 </host> <port> 6667 </port> <channel&…

Read More