Get list of XML attribute values in Python

Question

I need to get a list of attribute values from child elements in Python.

It\'s easiest to explain with an example.

Given some XML like this:

&         


        

Answer 1

I'm not really an old hand at Python, but here's an XPath solution using libxml2.

import libxml2

DOC = """<elements>
    <parent name="CategoryA">
        <child value="a1"/>
        <child value="a2"/>
        <child value="a3"/>
    </parent>
    <parent name="CategoryB">
        <child value="b1"/>
        <child value="b2"/>
        <child value="b3"/>
    </parent>
</elements>"""

doc = libxml2.parseDoc(DOC)

def getValues(cat):
    return [attr.content for attr in doc.xpathEval("/elements/parent[@name='%s']/child/@value" % (cat))]

print getValues("CategoryA")

With result...

['a1', 'a2', 'a3']