parsing large xml file with Python - etree.parse error

Question

Trying to parse the following Python file using the lxml.etree.iterparse function.

\"sampleoutput.xml\"

Answer 1

The problem is that XML isn't well-formed if it doesn't have exactly one top-level tag. You can fix your sample by wrapping the entire document in <items></items> tags. You also need the <desc/> tags to match the query that you're using (description).

The following document produces correct results with your existing code:

<items>
  <item>
    <title>Item 1</title>
    <description>Description 1</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Item 2</title>
    <description>Description 2</description>
  </item>
</items>

Answer 2

As far as I know, xml.etree.ElementTree usually expects the XML file to contain one "root" element, i.e. one XML tag that encloses the complete document structure. From the error message you posted I would assume that this is the problem here as well:

´Line 5´ refers to the second <item> tag, so I guess Python complains that there is more data following after the assumed root element (i.e. the first <item> tag) was closed.