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pythonxmlelementtreexmlroot

Get attribute names and values from ElementTree

I have an XML <root> element with several attributes. I've been using the ElementTree package.

After I've parsed a tree from an xml file, I'm getting the document root, but I want to get the requested attribute, or even the entire list of attributes. 

<root a="1" b="2" c="3">
    </blablabla>
</root>

How can I retrieve all attribute names and values for a <root> element with ElementTree?

Solution

  • Each Element has an attribute .attrib that is a dictionary; simply use it's mapping methods to ask it for it's keys or values:

    for name, value in root.attrib.items():
    print '{0}="{1}"'.format(name, value)

    or

    for name in root.attrib:
    print '{0}="{1}"'.format(name, root.attrib[name])

    or use .values() or any of the other methods available on a python dict.

    To get an individual attribute, use the standard subscription syntax:

    print root.attrib['a']