How to modify xml using Beautiful Soup?

Question

I am trying to modify the lookup data elements in an xml file. A snippet of the xml is as follows:

I want to modify the lookup data and save a copy of the xml with that modification. This is how I do it:

with open('....xml') as fp:
        contents = fp.read()
        soup = BeautifulSoup(contents, 'lxml')

        tag = soup.find(elem_name).find(elem_path).lookupdata
        tag.replace_with(str(values))

    #saves the modified data as a new xml version
    teslaname= elem_name+key
    
    with open('modified.xml', 'w') as file:  
        file.write(str(soup))
        file.close()

But , when I do this, the specific modification is done but it changes the xml structure.

And I want to preserve the structure and only modify the data. I know it can be done through ElementTree, but how I need my code to function, beautifulsoup is more simpler to use. So if considering only to use beautifulsoup, how can I edit and save a copy of xml without losing the original structure of xml? Any help would be appreciated.

user_12349734 · Answer

To keep the XML structure, use the .prettify() method when writing to the file:

file.write(str(soup.prettify()))

Note:

BeautifulSoup converts the XML tags to lowercase.
Since your opening the file using a context manager, there's no need to close the file using file.close(), the file will automatically close when exiting the indentation block.

user_9448090 · Answer

Using lxml, you can do something along the lines of:

from lxml import etree
config = """[your xml above, corrected - it's not well formed]"""
new_values = "1,2,3,4"
doc = etree.XML(config.encode())
target = doc.xpath('//LookupData')[0]
target.text = new_values
print(etree.tostring(doc).decode())

Output:

How to modify xml using Beautiful Soup?

2 Answers