Search code examples
pythonxml-parsingminidom

How to getElementsByClassName by using python xml.dom.minidom?


I want to obtain the body of all elements that do have a specific class.

Python xml.dom.minidom has a method for getting an element by id, getElementById() but I need to get all elements that do have a specific class.

How do I obtain this?

Note, if this is not possible using minidom, please provide a simple alternative that would allow me to get the full content of the elements of this class. By full content I mean also all the subnodes and text below them, as a simple string.


Solution

  • I recommended you to use lxml instead of xml.dom.minidom.

    Using lxml.html / cssselect:

    import lxml.html
    
    root = lxml.html.fromstring(document_string)
    for elem in root.cssselect('elem.class'):
        print(elem.tag)
        print(elem.get('src'))
    

    Using lxml.etree / xpath:

    import lxml.etree
    
    root = lxml.etree.fromstring(document_string)
    for elem in root.xpath('.//elem[contains(@class, "class")]'):
        print(elem.tag)
        print(elem.get('src'))