Find and Replace Values in XML using Python

user_820088 0
Viewed 99070

I am looking to edit XML files using python. I want to find and replace keywords in the tags. In the past, a co-worker had set up template XML files and used a "find and replace" program to replace these key words. I want to use python to find and replace these key words with values. I have been teaching myself the Elementtree module, but I am having trouble trying to do a find and replace. I have attached a snid-bit of my XML file. You will seen some variables surrounded by % (ie %SITEDESCR%) These are the words I want to replace and then save the XML to a new file. Any help or suggestions would be great.

Thanks, Mike

<metadata>
<idinfo>
<citation>
<citeinfo>
 <origin>My Company</origin>
 <pubdate>05/04/2009</pubdate>
 <title>POLYGONS</title>
 <geoform>vector digital data</geoform>
 <onlink>\\C$\ArcGISDevelopment\Geodatabase\PDA_STD_05_25_2009.gdb</onlink>
</citeinfo>
</citation>
 <descript>
 <abstract>This dataset represents the mapped polygons developed from the field data for the %SITEDESCR%.</abstract>
 <purpose>This dataset was created to accompany some stuff.</purpose>
 </descript>
<timeperd>
<timeinfo>
<rngdates>
 <begdate>%begdate%</begdate>
 <begtime>unknown</begtime>
 <enddate>%enddate%</enddate>
 <endtime>unknown</endtime>
 </rngdates>
 </timeinfo>
 <current>ground condition</current>
 </timeperd>
find xml python replace
4 Answers

You can modify in place and safely do so with xpath rather than full paths or worse, regex. See below and check out the docs on etree

from lxml import etree
raw = """
<node>
<begdate>%begdate%</begdate>
<begtime>unknown</begtime>
<enddate>%enddate%</enddate>
<endtime>unknown</endtime>
</node>"""
nodes = etree.fromstring(raw.strip())
shh = [setattr(x, "text", "DATE: 2021-01-01") for x in nodes.xpath(".//*[.='%begdate%']")]
nodes.xpath(".//begdate//text()")

['DATE: 2021-01-01']
user_51337210
Related