ElementTree - Howto access text within XML tag element...

cmalmqui cmalmqui at gmail.com
Tue Aug 11 16:20:35 EDT 2009


On Aug 11, 9:51 am, "Diez B. Roggisch" <de... at nospam.web.de> wrote:
> cmalmqui schrieb:
> > Hi,
>
> > I am writing on a small XML parser and are currently stuck as I am not
> > able to get the whole element name in ElementTree.
>
> > Please see the below example where "print root[0][0]" returns
> > "<Element 'Activity' at 018A3938>"
>
> > Is there a way to get hold of the "Running" string in the tag using
> > elementTree?
>
> > <Activities>
> >     <Activity Sport="Running">
> >       <Id>2009-07-10T14:48:00Z</Id>
> >       <Lap StartTime="2009-07-10T14:48:00Z">
> >       .........
>
> > For those of you that know how to program XML I have another
> > question:
> > I am currently "hardcoding" my XML parser using brackets, is this a
> > good approach or should I build it using a "search on tag" approach.
>
> What do you mean by that - hardcoding by brackets?
>
> Diez

Indeed, my current approach has been to hardcode the XML parser using
brackets. Is there a more elegant way?

I am parsing a garmin xml file from a handheld GPS and as you can see
in the below script, I am hardcoding each node:

import xml.etree.cElementTree as etree

def gettext(elem):
    text = elem.text or ""
    for e in elem:
        text += gettext(e)
        if e.tail:
            text += e.tail
    return text

tree = etree.parse('10_07_2009 16_48_00_history.tcx')
root = tree.getroot()

elem = root[0][0]

# ID Tag
print "type of exercise    : " + elem.get("Sport")
print "excercise starttime : " + gettext(elem[0])

# iterate over all laps
for i in range(1, len(elem)-1):

    # LAP TAG
    print "\nlap number          : " + str(i)
    print "lap start time      : " + str(elem[i].get("StartTime"))
    print "lap duration (s)    : " + gettext(elem[i][0])
    print "lap length (m)      : " + gettext(elem[i][1])
    print "max speed (km/h)    : " + gettext(elem[i][2])
    print "number of calories  : " + gettext(elem[i][3])
    print "average heartbeat   : " + gettext(elem[i][4][0])
    print "max     heartbeat   : " + gettext(elem[i][5][0])
    print "number of records   : " + str(len(elem[i][8])-1)
    for j in range(1, len(elem[i][8])-1):
        time = gettext(elem[i][8][j][0])    #time
        lat  = gettext(elem[i][8][j][1][0]) #lat
        lon  = gettext(elem[i][8][j][1][1]) #lon
        alt  = gettext(elem[i][8][j][2])    #alt
        dist = gettext(elem[i][8][j][3])    #distance from start
        bpm  = gettext(elem[i][8][j][4][0]) #beats per minute
        #print time + " " + lat + " " + lon + " " + alt + " " + dist +
" " + bpm

print "\nReceiver Info       : " + gettext(elem[len(elem)-1][0])



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