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pythonxmlsavepython-requestsparsexml

Save XML response from GET call using Python


I'm trying to create a realtime report using an API that allows me to grab the data I need and returns it in XML format. What I want to know is, after receiving the response, how can I save it to an .xml file locally? Or cache it, that way I can parse it before parsing the response.

import requests
r = requests.get('url',  auth=('user', 'pass'))

I'm using requests since it's the easiest way to make a GET call in my opinion. Also, this is my first question and I'm barely starting to learn Python, I'd appreciate it if you guys had a little patience. Thanks.

I was looking at a similar question but for JSON, not sure if it would work the same, https://stackoverflow.com/a/17519020/4821590

import requests
import json
solditems = requests.get('https://github.com/timeline.json') # (your url)
data = solditems.json()
with open('data.json', 'w') as f:
    json.dump(data, f)

Solution

  • If you want to be able to parse the returned XML before doing stuff with it, the xml tree is your friend.

    import requests
    import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
    
    r = requests.get('url',  auth=('user', 'pass'))
    tree = ET.parse(r.text)
    root = tree.getroot()
    

    Otherwise, as jordanm has commented, you could just save it to a file and be done with it.

    with open('data.xml', 'w') as f:
        f.write(r.text)