How to return a list of folder elements in this kml file?

Question

Here is the top of the file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2">
  <Document>
    <Folder>
  <name>Points</name>
  <Placemark>
    <name>Port Saeed, Dubai</name>
    <styleUrl>#icon-1899-0288D1-nodesc</styleUrl>
    <Point>
      <coordinates>
        55.3295568,25.2513145,0
      </coordinates>
    </Point>
  </Placemark>
  <Placemark>
    <name>Retail Location #1</name>
    <description>Paris, France</description>
    <styleUrl>#icon-1899-0288D1</styleUrl>
    <Point>
      <coordinates>
        2.3620605,48.8867304,0
      </coordinates>
    </Point>
  </Placemark>
  <Placemark>
    <name>Odessa Oblast</name>
...

I would like to extract the "Folder" elements

Here is my code.

tree = ET.parse(kml)
root = tree.getroot()

for element in root:
    print element.findall('.//{http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2/}Folder')

right now this prints []. I believe its a problem with the namespace. I can't figure out how to create that string? Also, perhaps its worth using xpath instead? I think I would have the same problem with the namespace though

Answer 1

Consider iterating through all descendants of Folder as this node contains child and grandchildren elements. Also, your namespace prefix used in parsing should not end with a forward slash.

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

root = ET.fromstring('''<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2">
  <Document>
    <Folder>
      <name>Points</name>
      <Placemark>
        <name>Port Saeed, Dubai</name>
        <styleUrl>#icon-1899-0288D1-nodesc</styleUrl>
        <Point>
          <coordinates>
        55.3295568,25.2513145,0
          </coordinates>
        </Point>
      </Placemark>
      <Placemark>
        <name>Retail Location #1</name>
        <description>Paris, France</description>
        <styleUrl>#icon-1899-0288D1</styleUrl>
        <Point>
          <coordinates>
        2.3620605,48.8867304,0
          </coordinates>
        </Point>
      </Placemark>
    </Folder>
  </Document>
</kml>''')

# FIND ALL FOLDERS
for i in root.findall('.//{http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2}Folder'):
    # FIND ALL FOLDER'S DESCENDANTS
    for inner in i.findall('.//*'):
        data = inner.text.strip()     # STRIP LEAD/TRAIL WHITESPACE
        if len(data) > 1:             # LEAVE OUT EMPTY ELEMENTS
            print(data)

# Points
# Port Saeed, Dubai
# icon-1899-0288D1-nodesc
# 55.3295568,25.2513145,0
# Retail Location #1
# Paris, France
# #icon-1899-0288D1
# 2.3620605,48.8867304,0

For a nested list, append node text to a list where each inner list corresponds to each Folder:

data = []
for i in root.findall('.//{http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2}Folder'):
    inner = []
    for t in i.findall('.//*'):
        txt = t.text.strip()
        if len(txt) > 1:
            inner.append(txt)

    data.append(inner)