Write KML file from another

Question

I'm trying to:

- read a KML file
- remove the Placemark element if name = 'ZONE'
- write a new KML file without the element

This is my code:

from pykml import parser
kml_file_path = '../Source/Lombardia.kml'

removeList = list()

with open(kml_file_path) as f:
 folder = parser.parse(f).getroot().Document.Folder

for pm in folder.Placemark:
    if pm.name == 'ZONE':
        removeList.append(pm)
        print pm.name

for tag in removeList:
    parent = tag.getparent()
    parent.remove(tag)
#Write the new file
#I cannot reach the solution help me

and this is the KML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.2">
<Document>
    <name>Lombardia</name>
    <Style>
    ...
    </Style>
    <Folder>
<Placemark>
            <name>ZOGNO</name>
            <styleUrl>#FEATURES_LABELS</styleUrl>
            <Point>
                <coordinates>9.680530595139061,45.7941656233647,0</coordinates>
            </Point>
        </Placemark>
        <Placemark>
            <name>ZONE</name>
            <styleUrl>#FEATURES_LABELS</styleUrl>
            <Point>
                <coordinates>10.1315885854064,45.7592449779275,0</coordinates>
            </Point>
        </Placemark>
    </Folder>
</Document>
</kml>

The problem is that when I write the new KML file this still has the element I want to delete. In fact, with I want to delete the element that contains name = ZONE. What i'm doing wrong? Thank you.

--- Final Code This is the working code thanks to @Dawid Ferenczy:

from lxml import etree
import pykml
from pykml import parser

kml_file_path = '../Source/Lombardia.kml'

# parse the input file into an object tree
with open(kml_file_path) as f:
  tree = parser.parse(f)

# get a reference to the "Document.Folder" node
folder = tree.getroot().Document.Folder

# iterate through all "Document.Folder.Placemark" nodes and find and remove all nodes
# which contain child node "name" with content "ZONE"
for pm in folder.Placemark:
    if pm.name == 'ZOGNO':
        parent = pm.getparent()
        parent.remove(pm)

# convert the object tree into a string and write it into an output file
with open('output.kml', 'w') as output:
    output.write(etree.tostring(folder, pretty_print=True))

Answer 1

You have the following issues in your code:

• you're not storing the whole parsed object tree anywhere (you have just a reference to the node "Document.Folder": folder = parser.parse(f).getroot().Document.Folder) but you want to write it back into a file so you need to store it
• I don't understand why you need two loops and the list removeList when you can delete elements directly in the first loop
• you're not reading the documentation - it's well described how to write the object tree into a file under examples in pykml library's documentation

Try the following code:

from lxml import etree
from pykml import parser

kml_file_path = './input.kml'

# parse the input file into an object tree
with open(kml_file_path) as f:
  tree = parser.parse(f)

# get a reference to the "Document.Folder" node
folder = tree.getroot().Document.Folder

# iterate through all "Document.Folder.Placemark" nodes and find and remove all nodes 
# which contain child node "name" with content "ZONE"
for pm in folder.Placemark:
    if pm.name == 'ZONE':
        parent = pm.getparent()
        parent.remove(pm)

# convert the object tree into a string and write it into an output file
with open('output.kml', 'w') as output:
    output.write(etree.tostring(tree, pretty_print=True))

It's very simple:

• KML file is parsed into an object tree and stored in variable tree
• the same object tree is directly manipulated (removed element)
• the same object tree is written back into a file