Mailman 3 remove an element without removing its tail? - lxml - The Python XML Toolkit

22 Jan 2016

      I am struggling with a tail problem. Here is the example;

<sp>
    <speaker>Rainoldes.</speaker>
    <p>You may learne the reason hereof in your <hi>Por‑tesse,</hi>
reformed lately by the Pope. In your olde <note n="c" place="margin">
        <hi>Portiforium seu breuiarium, ad vsum ecclesiae Sarum: in festo
S. Thomae Can‑••ariensis.</hi>
    </note>
        <hi>Portesse</hi> there was this prayer to the Popes martyr,
<hi>S. Thomas Bec‑ket of Canterbury:</hi>
        <q>
            <floatingText>
                <body>
                    <div type="version">
                        <l>Christe Iesu,</l>
                        <l>per Thomae vulnera,</l>
                        <l>Quae nos ligant.</l>
                        <l>relaxa scelera.</l>
                    </div>
                    <div type="version">
                        <l>By Thomas woundes,</l>
                        <l>O Christ Iesus,</l>
                        <l>Loose thou the sinnes▪</l>
                        <l>which do binde vs.</l>
                    </div>
                </body>
            </floatingText>
        </q>
        Or, if you will haue better ryme, with as bad reason:
        <q>
            <pb n="480" facs="tcp:15991:239"/>
            <floatingText>
                <body>
                    <div type="version">
                        <l>Tu per Thomae sanguinem</l>
                        <l>quem pro te impendit,</l>
                        <l>Fac nos Christe scandere</l>
                        <l>quo Thomas a•cendit.</l>
                    </div>
                    <div type="version">
                        <l>By the blood of Thomas</l>
                        <l>which he for thee did spend,</l>
                        <l>Make vs O Christ to clime</l>
                        <l>whether he did a••end.</l>
                    </div>
                </body>
            </floatingText>
        </q>
        <q>
            <l>Mary had a little lamb</l>
        </q>
    </p>
</sp>

In this example (and many others from a larger collection) I want to strip
<q> as unnecessary wrappers. In this particular case, I could use
strip_tags. But this wouldn't work in cases where q does not wrap a
floatingText element. In many cases, it would be simple to do something
like 

q.addprevious(floatingText)
parent = q.getparent()
parent.remove(q)

But this code removes the tail of q, which I want to keep. How do I remove
the empty q element without removing the tail as well?

MM

remove an element without removing its tail?

Martin Mueller

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