How to split an XML file the simple way in Python?

Question

I have Python code for parsing an XML file as detailed here. I understand that XML files are notorious for hogging system resources when manipulated in memory. My solution works

Answer 1

You can parse your big XML file incrementally:

from xml.etree.cElementTree import iterparse

# get an iterable and turn it into an iterator
context = iter(iterparse("path/to/big.xml", events=("start", "end")))

# get the root element
event, root = next(context)
assert event == "start"

for event, elem in context:
    if event == "end" and elem.tag == "book":
       # ... process book elements ...
       root.clear()