Pretty printing XML in Python

Question

What is the best way (or are the various ways) to pretty print XML in Python?

Answer 1

I had this problem and solved it like this:

def write_xml_file (self, file, xml_root_element, xml_declaration=False, pretty_print=False, encoding='unicode', indent='\t'):
    pretty_printed_xml = etree.tostring(xml_root_element, xml_declaration=xml_declaration, pretty_print=pretty_print, encoding=encoding)
    if pretty_print: pretty_printed_xml = pretty_printed_xml.replace('  ', indent)
    file.write(pretty_printed_xml)

In my code this method is called like this:

try:
    with open(file_path, 'w') as file:
        file.write('')

        # create some xml content using etree ...

        xml_parser = XMLParser()
        xml_parser.write_xml_file(file, xml_root, xml_declaration=False, pretty_print=True, encoding='unicode', indent='\t')

except IOError:
    print("Error while writing in log file!")

This works only because etree by default uses two spaces to indent, which I don't find very much emphasizing the indentation and therefore not pretty. I couldn't ind any setting for etree or parameter for any function to change the standard etree indent. I like how easy it is to use etree, but this was really annoying me.