lxml - how to move elements into a folder based on a certain attribute

Question

I have a KML that has a large number of placemarks, and 2 folders. How can I use etree to locate each placemark and move it into the corresponding folder. For example, the code should look for the element "SimpleData name='id'" and pick up 'Region 1', then move the whole Plaemark into the folder Area 1.

Before:

<Folder>
    <name>Cluster</name>
    <Folder>Area 1</Folder>
    <Folder>Area 2</Folder>
    <Placemark>
        <styleUrl>#falseColor9</styleUrl>
        <name>Customer 1</name>
        <ExtendedData>
            <SimpleData name="id">Region 1</SimpleData>
        </ExtendedData>
    </Placemark>
    <Placemark>
        <styleUrl>#falseColor8</styleUrl>
        <name>Customer 1</name>
        <ExtendedData>
            <SimpleData name="id">Region 2</SimpleData>
        </ExtendedData>
    </Placemark>    
</Folder>

After:

<Folder>
    <name>Cluster</name>
    <Folder>Area 1</Folder>
        <Placemark>
            <name>Customer 1</name>
            <styleUrl>#falseColor9</styleUrl>           
            <ExtendedData>
                <SimpleData name="id">Region 1</SimpleData>
            </ExtendedData>
        </Placemark>
    <Folder>Area 2</Folder>
        <Placemark>
            <styleUrl>#falseColor8</styleUrl>
            <name>Customer 1</name>
            <ExtendedData>
                <SimpleData name="id">Region 2</SimpleData>
            </ExtendedData>
        </Placemark>    
</Folder>

Any help would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Using lxml, this can be done like this:

from lxml import etree
marks = """[your xml above]"""
doc = etree.XML(marks.encode())
for region in doc.xpath('//SimpleData'):
    target = region.text.split(' ')[1].strip()
    dests = doc.xpath('//Folder//Folder')
    for dest in dests:
        if target in dest.text:
            move =region.xpath('ancestor::Placemark')[0]
            dest.addnext((move))
print(etree.tostring(doc).decode())

Output:

<Folder>
   <name>Cluster</name>
   <Folder>Area 1</Folder>
    <Placemark>
      <styleUrl>#falseColor9</styleUrl>
      <name>Customer 1</name>
      <ExtendedData>
         <SimpleData name="id">Region 1</SimpleData>
      </ExtendedData>
   </Placemark>
   
   <Folder>Area 2</Folder>
   <Placemark>
      <styleUrl>#falseColor8</styleUrl>
      <name>Customer 1</name>
      <ExtendedData>
         <SimpleData name="id">Region 2</SimpleData>
      </ExtendedData>
   </Placemark>
   </Folder>