Updating XML elements and attribute values using Python etree

Question

I\'m trying to use Python 2.7\'s ElementTree library to parse an XML file, then replace specific element attributes with test data, then save this as a unique X

Answer 1

For this kind of work, I always recommend BeautifulSoup because it has a really easy to learn API:

from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulStoneSoup as Soup

xml = """
<TrdCaptRpt RptID="10000001" TransTyp="0">
    <RptSide Side="1" Txt1="XXXXX">
        <Pty ID="XXXXX" R="1"/>
    </RptSide>
</TrdCaptRpt>
"""

soup = Soup(xml)
rpt_side = soup.trdcaptrpt.rptside
rpt_side['txt1'] = 'Updated'
rpt_side.pty['id'] = 'Updated'

print soup

Example output:

<trdcaptrpt rptid="10000001" transtyp="0">
<rptside side="1" txt1="Updated">
<pty id="Updated" r="1">
</pty></rptside>
</trdcaptrpt>

Edit: With xml.etree.ElementTree you could use the following script:

from xml.etree import ElementTree as etree

xml = """
<TrdCaptRpt RptID="10000001" TransTyp="0">
    <RptSide Side="1" Txt1="XXXXX">
        <Pty ID="XXXXX" R="1"/>
    </RptSide>
</TrdCaptRpt>
"""

root = etree.fromstring(xml)
rpt_side = root.find('RptSide')
rpt_side.set('Txt1', 'Updated')
pty = rpt_side.find('Pty')
pty.set('ID', 'Updated')
print etree.tostring(root)

Example output:

<TrdCaptRpt RptID="10000001" TransTyp="0">
    <RptSide Side="1" Txt1="Updated">
        <Pty ID="Updated" R="1" />
    </RptSide>
</TrdCaptRpt>