# `!xml.etree.ElementTree` --- The ElementTree XML API

<div class="module" data-synopsis="Implementation of the ElementTree API.">

xml.etree.ElementTree

</div>

**Source code:** `Lib/xml/etree/ElementTree.py`

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The `!xml.etree.ElementTree` module implements a simple and efficient API for parsing and creating XML data.

<div class="versionchanged">

3.3 This module will use a fast implementation whenever available.

</div>

<div class="deprecated">

3.3 The `!xml.etree.cElementTree` alias of this module is deprecated.

</div>

> [!NOTE]
> If you need to parse untrusted or unauthenticated data, see `xml-security`.

## Tutorial

This is a short tutorial for using `!xml.etree.ElementTree` (`ET` in short). The goal is to demonstrate some of the building blocks and basic concepts of the module.

### XML tree and elements

XML is an inherently hierarchical data format, and the most natural way to represent it is with a tree. `ET` has two classes for this purpose - `ElementTree` represents the whole XML document as a tree, and `Element` represents a single node in this tree. Interactions with the whole document (reading and writing to/from files) are usually done on the `ElementTree` level. Interactions with a single XML element and its sub-elements are done on the `Element` level.

### Parsing XML

We'll be using the fictive `country_data.xml` XML document as the sample data for this section:

``` xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<data>
    <country name="Liechtenstein">
        <rank>1</rank>
        <year>2008</year>
        <gdppc>141100</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Austria" direction="E"/>
        <neighbor name="Switzerland" direction="W"/>
    </country>
    <country name="Singapore">
        <rank>4</rank>
        <year>2011</year>
        <gdppc>59900</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Malaysia" direction="N"/>
    </country>
    <country name="Panama">
        <rank>68</rank>
        <year>2011</year>
        <gdppc>13600</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Costa Rica" direction="W"/>
        <neighbor name="Colombia" direction="E"/>
    </country>
</data>
```

We can import this data by reading from a file:

    import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
    tree = ET.parse('country_data.xml')
    root = tree.getroot()

Or directly from a string:

    root = ET.fromstring(country_data_as_string)

`fromstring` parses XML from a string directly into an `Element`, which is the root element of the parsed tree. Other parsing functions may create an `ElementTree`. Check the documentation to be sure.

As an `Element`, `root` has a tag and a dictionary of attributes:

    >>> root.tag
    'data'
    >>> root.attrib
    {}

It also has children nodes over which we can iterate:

    >>> for child in root:
    ...     print(child.tag, child.attrib)
    ...
    country {'name': 'Liechtenstein'}
    country {'name': 'Singapore'}
    country {'name': 'Panama'}

Children are nested, and we can access specific child nodes by index:

    >>> root[0][1].text
    '2008'

> [!NOTE]
> Not all elements of the XML input will end up as elements of the parsed tree. Currently, this module skips over any XML comments, processing instructions, and document type declarations in the input. Nevertheless, trees built using this module's API rather than parsing from XML text can have comments and processing instructions in them; they will be included when generating XML output. A document type declaration may be accessed by passing a custom `TreeBuilder` instance to the `XMLParser` constructor.

### Pull API for non-blocking parsing

Most parsing functions provided by this module require the whole document to be read at once before returning any result. It is possible to use an `XMLParser` and feed data into it incrementally, but it is a push API that calls methods on a callback target, which is too low-level and inconvenient for most needs. Sometimes what the user really wants is to be able to parse XML incrementally, without blocking operations, while enjoying the convenience of fully constructed `Element` objects.

The most powerful tool for doing this is `XMLPullParser`. It does not require a blocking read to obtain the XML data, and is instead fed with data incrementally with `XMLPullParser.feed` calls. To get the parsed XML elements, call `XMLPullParser.read_events`. Here is an example:

    >>> parser = ET.XMLPullParser(['start', 'end'])
    >>> parser.feed('<mytag>sometext')
    >>> list(parser.read_events())
    [('start', <Element 'mytag' at 0x7fa66db2be58>)]
    >>> parser.feed(' more text</mytag>')
    >>> for event, elem in parser.read_events():
    ...     print(event)
    ...     print(elem.tag, 'text=', elem.text)
    ...
    end
    mytag text= sometext more text

The obvious use case is applications that operate in a non-blocking fashion where the XML data is being received from a socket or read incrementally from some storage device. In such cases, blocking reads are unacceptable.

Because it's so flexible, `XMLPullParser` can be inconvenient to use for simpler use-cases. If you don't mind your application blocking on reading XML data but would still like to have incremental parsing capabilities, take a look at `iterparse`.

Note that both parsers build the tree incrementally: it is not freed incrementally, so every parsed element is kept until the whole document is read. To keep the memory usage low, get rid of the data which is not needed any more.

If the processed elements are large, it is enough to clear them. This works wherever they are in the tree, but the emptied elements are left in it:

    for event, elem in ET.iterparse(source):
        if elem.tag == 'record':
            process(elem)
            elem.clear()

If an element has a large number of children, remove the processed children from it:

    for event, elem in ET.iterparse(source, events=('start', 'end')):
        if event == 'start' and elem.tag == 'parent':
            parent = elem
        elif event == 'end' and elem.tag == 'child':
            process(elem)
            parent.remove(elem)

These examples are not universal, they only give an idea for two common cases. If you do not need a tree at all, parse with `XMLParser` and a custom target instead; it is not built then, and nothing has to be removed.

Where *immediate* feedback through events is wanted, calling method `XMLPullParser.flush` can help reduce delay; please make sure to study the related security notes.

### Finding interesting elements

`Element` has some useful methods that help iterate recursively over all the sub-tree below it (its children, their children, and so on). For example, `Element.iter`:

    >>> for neighbor in root.iter('neighbor'):
    ...     print(neighbor.attrib)
    ...
    {'name': 'Austria', 'direction': 'E'}
    {'name': 'Switzerland', 'direction': 'W'}
    {'name': 'Malaysia', 'direction': 'N'}
    {'name': 'Costa Rica', 'direction': 'W'}
    {'name': 'Colombia', 'direction': 'E'}

`Element.findall` finds only elements with a tag which are direct children of the current element. `Element.find` finds the *first* child with a particular tag, and `Element.text` accesses the element's text content. `Element.get` accesses the element's attributes:

    >>> for country in root.findall('country'):
    ...     rank = country.find('rank').text
    ...     name = country.get('name')
    ...     print(name, rank)
    ...
    Liechtenstein 1
    Singapore 4
    Panama 68

More sophisticated specification of which elements to look for is possible by using `XPath <elementtree-xpath>`.

### Modifying an XML File

`ElementTree` provides a simple way to build XML documents and write them to files. The `ElementTree.write` method serves this purpose.

Once created, an `Element` object may be manipulated by directly changing its fields (such as `Element.text`), adding and modifying attributes (`Element.set` method), as well as adding new children (for example with `Element.append`).

Let's say we want to add one to each country's rank, and add an `updated` attribute to the rank element:

    >>> for rank in root.iter('rank'):
    ...     new_rank = int(rank.text) + 1
    ...     rank.text = str(new_rank)
    ...     rank.set('updated', 'yes')
    ...
    >>> tree.write('output.xml')

Our XML now looks like this:

``` xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<data>
    <country name="Liechtenstein">
        <rank updated="yes">2</rank>
        <year>2008</year>
        <gdppc>141100</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Austria" direction="E"/>
        <neighbor name="Switzerland" direction="W"/>
    </country>
    <country name="Singapore">
        <rank updated="yes">5</rank>
        <year>2011</year>
        <gdppc>59900</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Malaysia" direction="N"/>
    </country>
    <country name="Panama">
        <rank updated="yes">69</rank>
        <year>2011</year>
        <gdppc>13600</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Costa Rica" direction="W"/>
        <neighbor name="Colombia" direction="E"/>
    </country>
</data>
```

We can remove elements using `Element.remove`. Let's say we want to remove all countries with a rank higher than 50:

    >>> for country in root.findall('country'):
    ...     # using root.findall() to avoid removal during traversal
    ...     rank = int(country.find('rank').text)
    ...     if rank > 50:
    ...         root.remove(country)
    ...
    >>> tree.write('output.xml')

Note that concurrent modification while iterating can lead to problems, just like when iterating and modifying Python lists or dicts. Therefore, the example first collects all matching elements with `root.findall()`, and only then iterates over the list of matches.

Our XML now looks like this:

``` xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<data>
    <country name="Liechtenstein">
        <rank updated="yes">2</rank>
        <year>2008</year>
        <gdppc>141100</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Austria" direction="E"/>
        <neighbor name="Switzerland" direction="W"/>
    </country>
    <country name="Singapore">
        <rank updated="yes">5</rank>
        <year>2011</year>
        <gdppc>59900</gdppc>
        <neighbor name="Malaysia" direction="N"/>
    </country>
</data>
```

### Building XML documents

The `SubElement` function also provides a convenient way to create new sub-elements for a given element:

    >>> a = ET.Element('a')
    >>> b = ET.SubElement(a, 'b')
    >>> c = ET.SubElement(a, 'c')
    >>> d = ET.SubElement(c, 'd')
    >>> ET.dump(a)
    <a><b /><c><d /></c></a>

### Parsing XML with Namespaces

If the XML input has [namespaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_namespace), tags and attributes with prefixes in the form `prefix:sometag` get expanded to `{uri}sometag` where the *prefix* is replaced by the full *URI*. Also, if there is a [default namespace](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-names/#defaulting), that full URI gets prepended to all of the non-prefixed tags.

Here is an XML example that incorporates two namespaces, one with the prefix "fictional" and the other serving as the default namespace:

``` xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<actors xmlns:fictional="http://characters.example.com"
        xmlns="http://people.example.com">
    <actor>
        <name>John Cleese</name>
        <fictional:character>Lancelot</fictional:character>
        <fictional:character>Archie Leach</fictional:character>
    </actor>
    <actor>
        <name>Eric Idle</name>
        <fictional:character>Sir Robin</fictional:character>
        <fictional:character>Gunther</fictional:character>
        <fictional:character>Commander Clement</fictional:character>
    </actor>
</actors>
```

One way to search and explore this XML example is to manually add the URI to every tag or attribute in the xpath of a `~Element.find` or `~Element.findall`:

    root = fromstring(xml_text)
    for actor in root.findall('{http://people.example.com}actor'):
        name = actor.find('{http://people.example.com}name')
        print(name.text)
        for char in actor.findall('{http://characters.example.com}character'):
            print(' |-->', char.text)

A better way to search the namespaced XML example is to create a dictionary with your own prefixes and use those in the search functions:

    ns = {'real_person': 'http://people.example.com',
          'role': 'http://characters.example.com'}

    for actor in root.findall('real_person:actor', ns):
        name = actor.find('real_person:name', ns)
        print(name.text)
        for char in actor.findall('role:character', ns):
            print(' |-->', char.text)

These two approaches both output:

    John Cleese
     |--> Lancelot
     |--> Archie Leach
    Eric Idle
     |--> Sir Robin
     |--> Gunther
     |--> Commander Clement

## XPath support

This module provides limited support for [XPath expressions](https://www.w3.org/TR/xpath) for locating elements in a tree. The goal is to support a small subset of the abbreviated syntax; a full XPath engine is outside the scope of the module.

### Example

Here's an example that demonstrates some of the XPath capabilities of the module. We'll be using the `countrydata` XML document from the `Parsing XML <elementtree-parsing-xml>` section:

    import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

    root = ET.fromstring(countrydata)

    # Top-level elements
    root.findall(".")

    # All 'neighbor' grand-children of 'country' children of the top-level
    # elements
    root.findall("./country/neighbor")

    # Nodes with name='Singapore' that have a 'year' child
    root.findall(".//year/..[@name='Singapore']")

    # 'year' nodes that are children of nodes with name='Singapore'
    root.findall(".//*[@name='Singapore']/year")

    # All 'neighbor' nodes that are the second child of their parent
    root.findall(".//neighbor[2]")

For XML with namespaces, use the usual qualified `{namespace}tag` notation:

    # All dublin-core "title" tags in the document
    root.findall(".//{http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/}title")

### Supported XPath syntax

<div class="tabularcolumns">

\|l\|L\|

</div>

<table>
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 30%" />
<col style="width: 69%" />
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr>
<th><p>Syntax</p></th>
<th><p>Meaning</p></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><p><code>tag</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all child elements with the given tag. For example, <code>spam</code> selects all child elements named <code>spam</code>, and <code>spam/egg</code> selects all grandchildren named <code>egg</code> in all children named <code>spam</code>. <code>{namespace}*</code> selects all tags in the given namespace, <code>{*}spam</code> selects tags named <code>spam</code> in any (or no) namespace, and <code>{}*</code> only selects tags that are not in a namespace.</p>
<div class="versionchanged">
<p>3.8 Support for star-wildcards was added.</p>
</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>*</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all child elements, including comments and processing instructions. For example, <code>*/egg</code> selects all grandchildren named <code>egg</code>.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>.</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects the current node. This is mostly useful at the beginning of the path, to indicate that it's a relative path.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>//</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all subelements, on all levels beneath the current element. For example, <code>.//egg</code> selects all <code>egg</code> elements in the entire tree.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>..</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects the parent element. Returns <code>None</code> if the path attempts to reach the ancestors of the start element (the element <code>find</code> was called on).</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>[@attrib]</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all elements that have the given attribute.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>[@attrib='value']</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all elements for which the given attribute has the given value. The value cannot contain quotes.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>[@attrib!='value']</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all elements for which the given attribute does not have the given value. The value cannot contain quotes.</p>
<div class="versionadded">
<p>3.10</p>
</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>[tag]</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all elements that have a child named <code>tag</code>. Only immediate children are supported.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>[.='text']</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all elements whose complete text content, including descendants, equals the given <code>text</code>.</p>
<div class="versionadded">
<p>3.7</p>
</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>[.!='text']</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all elements whose complete text content, including descendants, does not equal the given <code>text</code>.</p>
<div class="versionadded">
<p>3.10</p>
</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>[tag='text']</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all elements that have a child named <code>tag</code> whose complete text content, including descendants, equals the given <code>text</code>.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>[tag!='text']</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all elements that have a child named <code>tag</code> whose complete text content, including descendants, does not equal the given <code>text</code>.</p>
<div class="versionadded">
<p>3.10</p>
</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><code>[position]</code></p></td>
<td><p>Selects all elements that are located at the given position. The position can be either an integer (1 is the first position), the expression <code>last()</code> (for the last position), or a position relative to the last position (e.g. <code>last()-1</code>).</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Predicates (expressions within square brackets) must be preceded by a tag name, an asterisk, or another predicate. `position` predicates must be preceded by a tag name.

## Reference

### Functions

<div class="function">

canonicalize(xml_data=None, *, out=None, from_file=None,*\*options)

[C14N 2.0](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n2/) transformation function.

Canonicalization is a way to normalise XML output in a way that allows byte-by-byte comparisons and digital signatures. It reduces the freedom that XML serializers have and instead generates a more constrained XML representation. The main restrictions regard the placement of namespace declarations, the ordering of attributes, and ignorable whitespace.

This function takes an XML data string (*xml_data*) or a file path or file-like object (*from_file*) as input, converts it to the canonical form, and writes it out using the *out* file(-like) object, if provided, or returns it as a text string if not. The output file receives text, not bytes. It should therefore be opened in text mode with `utf-8` encoding.

Typical uses:

    xml_data = "<root>...</root>"
    print(canonicalize(xml_data))

    with open("c14n_output.xml", mode='w', encoding='utf-8') as out_file:
        canonicalize(xml_data, out=out_file)

    with open("c14n_output.xml", mode='w', encoding='utf-8') as out_file:
        canonicalize(from_file="inputfile.xml", out=out_file)

The configuration *options* are as follows:

- *with_comments*: set to true to include comments (default: false)
- *strip_text*: set to true to strip whitespace before and after text content (default: false)
- *rewrite_prefixes*: set to true to replace namespace prefixes by "n{number}" (default: false)
- *qname_aware_tags*: a set of qname aware tag names in which prefixes should be replaced in text content (default: empty)
- *qname_aware_attrs*: a set of qname aware attribute names in which prefixes should be replaced in text content (default: empty)
- *exclude_attrs*: a set of attribute names that should not be serialised
- *exclude_tags*: a set of tag names that should not be serialised

In the option list above, "a set" refers to any collection or iterable of strings, no ordering is expected.

<div class="versionadded">

3.8

</div>

</div>

<div class="function">

Comment(text=None)

Comment element factory. This factory function creates a special element that will be serialized as an XML comment by the standard serializer. *text* is a string containing the comment string. Returns an element instance representing a comment.

Note that `XMLParser` skips over comments in the input instead of creating comment objects for them. An `ElementTree` will only contain comment nodes if they have been inserted into to the tree using one of the `Element` methods.

</div>

<div class="function">

dump(elem)

Writes an element tree or element structure to sys.stdout. This function should be used for debugging only.

The exact output format is implementation dependent. In this version, it's written as an ordinary XML file.

*elem* is an element tree or an individual element.

<div class="versionchanged">

3.8 The `dump` function now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.

</div>

</div>

<div class="function">

fromstring(text, parser=None)

Parses an XML section from a string constant. Same as `XML`. *text* is a string containing XML data. *parser* is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard `XMLParser` parser is used. Returns an `Element` instance.

</div>

<div class="function">

fromstringlist(sequence, parser=None)

Parses an XML document from a sequence of string fragments. *sequence* is a list or other sequence containing XML data fragments. *parser* is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard `XMLParser` parser is used. Returns an `Element` instance.

<div class="versionadded">

3.2

</div>

</div>

<div class="function">

indent(tree, space=" ", level=0)

Appends whitespace to the subtree to indent the tree visually. This can be used to generate pretty-printed XML output. *tree* can be an Element or ElementTree. *space* is the whitespace string that will be inserted for each indentation level, two space characters by default. For indenting partial subtrees inside of an already indented tree, pass the initial indentation level as *level*.

No whitespace is added inside an element which is marked with `xml:space="preserve"` or which contains text, because this would change its content.

<div class="versionadded">

3.9

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.16 Whitespace is no longer added inside an element with mixed content or marked with `xml:space="preserve"`.

</div>

</div>

<div class="function">

iselement(element)

Check if an object appears to be a valid element object. *element* is an element instance. Return `True` if this is an element object.

</div>

<div class="function">

iterparse(source, events=None, parser=None, \*, target=None)

Parses an XML section incrementally, and reports what's going on to the user. Unless a custom target is used, an element tree is built. *source* is a filename or `file object` containing XML data. *events* is a sequence of events to report back. The supported events are the strings `"start"`, `"end"`, `"comment"`, `"pi"`, `"start-ns"` and `"end-ns"` (the "ns" events are used to get detailed namespace information). If *events* is omitted, only `"end"` events are reported. *parser* is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard `XMLParser` parser is used. *parser* must be an instance of `XMLParser` or its subclass. *target* is the target of the standard parser, as for `XMLPullParser`; it cannot be used together with *parser*. Returns an `iterator` providing `(event, obj)` pairs, as described for `XMLPullParser.read_events`; it has a `root` attribute that references the root element of the resulting XML tree, or the value returned by the `close()` method of a custom target, once *source* is fully read. If a custom target is used, it is set to the value returned by the `!close` method of the target.

The iterator has the `!close` method that closes the internal file object if *source* is a filename.

Note that while `iterparse` builds the tree incrementally, it issues blocking reads on *source* (or the file it names). As such, it's unsuitable for applications where blocking reads can't be made. For fully non-blocking parsing, see `XMLPullParser`.

The tree is only built incrementally, it is not freed incrementally: every parsed element is kept until the whole document is read. See `elementtree-pull-parsing` for how to keep the memory usage low.

> [!NOTE]
> `iterparse` only guarantees that it has seen the "\>" character of a starting tag when it emits a "start" event, so the attributes are defined, but the contents of the text and tail attributes are undefined at that point. The same applies to the element children; they may or may not be present.
>
> If you need a fully populated element, look for "end" events instead.

<div class="deprecated">

3.4 The *parser* argument.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.8 The `comment` and `pi` events were added.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.13 Added the `!close` method.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.15 A `ResourceWarning` is now emitted if the iterator opened a file and is not explicitly closed.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.16 Added the *target* parameter.

</div>

</div>

<div class="function">

parse(source, parser=None)

Parses an XML section into an element tree. *source* is a filename or file object containing XML data. *parser* is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard `XMLParser` parser is used. Returns an `ElementTree` instance.

</div>

<div class="function">

ProcessingInstruction(target, text=None)

PI element factory. This factory function creates a special element that will be serialized as an XML processing instruction. *target* is a string containing the PI target. *text* is a string containing the PI contents, if given. Returns an element instance, representing a processing instruction.

Note that `XMLParser` skips over processing instructions in the input instead of creating PI objects for them. An `ElementTree` will only contain processing instruction nodes if they have been inserted into to the tree using one of the `Element` methods.

</div>

<div class="function">

register_namespace(prefix, uri)

Registers a namespace prefix. The registry is global, and any existing mapping for either the given prefix or the namespace URI will be removed. *prefix* is a namespace prefix. *uri* is a namespace uri. Tags and attributes in this namespace will be serialized with the given prefix, if at all possible.

<div class="versionadded">

3.2

</div>

</div>

<div class="function">

SubElement(parent, tag, /, attrib={}, \*\*extra)

Subelement factory. This function creates an element instance, and appends it to an existing element.

*parent* is the parent element. *tag* is the subelement name. *attrib* is an optional dictionary, containing element attributes. *extra* contains additional attributes, given as keyword arguments. Returns an element instance.

<div class="versionchanged">

3.15 *attrib* can now be a `frozendict`.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.15 *parent* and *tag* are now positional-only parameters.

</div>

</div>

<div class="function">

tostring(element, encoding="us-ascii", method="xml", \*, xml_declaration=None, default_namespace=None, short_empty_elements=True, standalone=None)

Generates a string representation of an XML element, including all subelements. *element* is an `Element` instance. *encoding*[^1] is the output encoding (default is US-ASCII). Use `encoding="unicode"` to generate a Unicode string (otherwise, a bytestring is generated). *method* is either `"xml"`, `"html"` or `"text"` (default is `"xml"`). *xml_declaration*, *default_namespace*, *short_empty_elements* and *standalone* has the same meaning as in `ElementTree.write`. Returns an (optionally) encoded string containing the XML data.

<div class="versionchanged">

3.4 Added the *short_empty_elements* parameter.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.8 Added the *xml_declaration* and *default_namespace* parameters.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.8 The `tostring` function now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.16 Added the *standalone* parameter.

</div>

</div>

<div class="function">

tostringlist(element, encoding="us-ascii", method="xml", \*, xml_declaration=None, default_namespace=None, short_empty_elements=True, standalone=None)

Generates a string representation of an XML element, including all subelements. *element* is an `Element` instance. *encoding*[^2] is the output encoding (default is US-ASCII). Use `encoding="unicode"` to generate a Unicode string (otherwise, a bytestring is generated). *method* is either `"xml"`, `"html"` or `"text"` (default is `"xml"`). *xml_declaration*, *default_namespace*, *short_empty_elements* and *standalone* has the same meaning as in `ElementTree.write`. Returns a list of (optionally) encoded strings containing the XML data. It does not guarantee any specific sequence, except that `b"".join(tostringlist(element)) == tostring(element)`.

<div class="versionadded">

3.2

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.4 Added the *short_empty_elements* parameter.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.8 Added the *xml_declaration* and *default_namespace* parameters.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.8 The `tostringlist` function now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.16 Added the *standalone* parameter.

</div>

</div>

<div class="function">

XML(text, parser=None)

Parses an XML section from a string constant. This function can be used to embed "XML literals" in Python code. *text* is a string containing XML data. *parser* is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard `XMLParser` parser is used. Returns an `Element` instance.

</div>

<div class="function">

XMLID(text, parser=None)

Parses an XML section from a string constant, and also returns a dictionary which maps from element id:s to elements. *text* is a string containing XML data. *parser* is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard `XMLParser` parser is used. Returns a tuple containing an `Element` instance and a dictionary.

</div>

## XInclude support

This module provides limited support for [XInclude directives](https://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude/), via the `xml.etree.ElementInclude` helper module. This module can be used to insert subtrees and text strings into element trees, based on information in the tree.

### Example

Here's an example that demonstrates use of the XInclude module. To include an XML document in the current document, use the `{http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude}include` element and set the **parse** attribute to `"xml"`, and use the **href** attribute to specify the document to include.

``` xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<document xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
  <xi:include href="source.xml" parse="xml" />
</document>
```

By default, the **href** attribute is treated as a file name. You can use custom loaders to override this behaviour. Also note that the standard helper does not support XPointer syntax.

To process this file, load it as usual, and pass the root element to the `!xml.etree.ElementTree` module:

``` python
from xml.etree import ElementTree, ElementInclude

tree = ElementTree.parse("document.xml")
root = tree.getroot()

ElementInclude.include(root)
```

The ElementInclude module replaces the `{http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude}include` element with the root element from the **source.xml** document. The result might look something like this:

``` xml
<document xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
  <para>This is a paragraph.</para>
</document>
```

If the **parse** attribute is omitted, it defaults to "xml". The href attribute is required.

To include a text document, use the `{http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude}include` element, and set the **parse** attribute to "text":

``` xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<document xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
  Copyright (c) <xi:include href="year.txt" parse="text" />.
</document>
```

The result might look something like:

``` xml
<document xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
  Copyright (c) 2003.
</document>
```

## Reference

### Functions

<div class="module">

xml.etree.ElementInclude

</div>

<div class="function">

default_loader(href, parse, encoding=None)

Default loader. This default loader reads an included resource from disk. *href* is a URL. *parse* is for parse mode either "xml" or "text". *encoding* is an optional text encoding. If not given, encoding is `utf-8`. Returns the expanded resource. If the parse mode is `"xml"`, this is an `~xml.etree.ElementTree.Element` instance. If the parse mode is `"text"`, this is a string. If the loader fails, it can return `None` or raise an exception.

</div>

<div class="function">

include(elem, loader=None, base_url=None, max_depth=6)

This function expands XInclude directives in-place in tree pointed by *elem*. *elem* is either the root `~xml.etree.ElementTree.Element` or an `~xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree` instance to find such element. *loader* is an optional resource loader. If omitted, it defaults to `default_loader`. If given, it should be a callable that implements the same interface as `default_loader`. *base_url* is base URL of the original file, to resolve relative include file references. *max_depth* is the maximum number of recursive inclusions. Limited to reduce the risk of malicious content explosion. Pass `None` to disable the limitation.

<div class="versionchanged">

3.9 Added the *base_url* and *max_depth* parameters.

</div>

</div>

### Element Objects

<div class="module" data-noindex="" data-no-index="">

xml.etree.ElementTree

</div>

<div class="Element(tag, /, attrib={}, **extra)">

Element class. This class defines the Element interface, and provides a reference implementation of this interface.

*tag* is the element name. *attrib* is an optional dictionary, containing element attributes. *extra* contains additional attributes, given as keyword arguments.

The element name and the attribute names and values are strings or `QName` instances, and the text and the tail are strings or `None`. The element name can also be `Comment` or `ProcessingInstruction`, which are used for special elements. If it is `None`, the element itself is not serialized: only its text and its children are written, and its attributes are ignored. This can be used for a fragment which contains several elements. With `method="html"` the attribute value can also be `None`, which produces an empty attribute (such as `checked`). Other objects can be stored in the tree, but they cannot be serialized.

<div class="versionchanged">

3.15 *attrib* can now be a `frozendict`.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.15 *tag* is now a positional-only parameter.

</div>

<div class="attribute">

tag

A string identifying what kind of data this element represents (the element type, in other words).

</div>

<div class="attribute">

text tail

These attributes can be used to hold additional data associated with the element. Their values are usually strings but may be any application-specific object. If the element is created from an XML file, the *text* attribute holds either the text between the element's start tag and its first child or end tag, or `None`, and the *tail* attribute holds either the text between the element's end tag and the next tag, or `None`. For the XML data

``` xml
<a><b>1<c>2<d/>3</c></b>4</a>
```

the *a* element has `None` for both *text* and *tail* attributes, the *b* element has *text* `"1"` and *tail* `"4"`, the *c* element has *text* `"2"` and *tail* `None`, and the *d* element has *text* `None` and *tail* `"3"`.

To collect the inner text of an element, see `itertext`, for example `"".join(element.itertext())`.

Applications may store arbitrary objects in these attributes.

</div>

<div class="attribute">

attrib

A dictionary containing the element's attributes. Note that while the *attrib* value is always a real mutable Python dictionary, an ElementTree implementation may choose to use another internal representation, and create the dictionary only if someone asks for it. To take advantage of such implementations, use the dictionary methods below whenever possible.

</div>

The following dictionary-like methods work on the element attributes.

<div class="method">

clear()

Resets an element. This function removes all subelements, clears all attributes, and sets the text and tail attributes to `None`.

</div>

<div class="method">

get(key, default=None)

Gets the element attribute named *key*.

Returns the attribute value, or *default* if the attribute was not found.

</div>

<div class="method">

items()

Returns the element attributes as (name, value) pairs.

</div>

<div class="method">

keys()

Returns the element attribute names.

</div>

<div class="method">

set(key, value)

Set the attribute *key* on the element to *value*.

</div>

The following methods work on the element's children (subelements).

<div class="method">

append(subelement)

Adds the element *subelement* to the end of this element's internal list of subelements. Raises `TypeError` if *subelement* is not an `Element`.

</div>

<div class="method">

extend(subelements)

Appends *subelements* from an iterable of elements. Raises `TypeError` if a subelement is not an `Element`.

<div class="versionadded">

3.2

</div>

</div>

<div class="method">

find(match, namespaces=None)

Finds the first subelement matching *match*. *match* may be a tag name or a `path <elementtree-xpath>`. Returns an element instance or `None`. *namespaces* is an optional mapping from namespace prefix to full name. Pass `''` as prefix to move all unprefixed tag names in the expression into the given namespace.

</div>

<div class="method">

findall(match, namespaces=None)

Finds all matching subelements, by tag name or `path <elementtree-xpath>`. Returns a list containing all matching elements in document order. *namespaces* is an optional mapping from namespace prefix to full name. Pass `''` as prefix to move all unprefixed tag names in the expression into the given namespace.

</div>

<div class="method">

findtext(match, default=None, namespaces=None)

Finds text for the first subelement matching *match*. *match* may be a tag name or a `path <elementtree-xpath>`. Returns the text content of the first matching element, or *default* if no element was found. Note that if the matching element has no text content an empty string is returned. *namespaces* is an optional mapping from namespace prefix to full name. Pass `''` as prefix to move all unprefixed tag names in the expression into the given namespace.

</div>

<div class="method">

insert(index, subelement)

Inserts *subelement* at the given position in this element. Raises `TypeError` if *subelement* is not an `Element`.

</div>

<div class="method">

iter(tag=None)

Creates a tree `iterator` with the current element as the root. The iterator iterates over this element and all elements below it, in document (depth first) order. If *tag* is not `None` or `'*'`, only elements whose tag equals *tag* are returned from the iterator. If the tree structure is modified during iteration, the result is undefined.

<div class="versionadded">

3.2

</div>

</div>

<div class="method">

iterfind(match, namespaces=None)

Finds all matching subelements, by tag name or `path <elementtree-xpath>`. Returns an iterable yielding all matching elements in document order. *namespaces* is an optional mapping from namespace prefix to full name.

<div class="versionadded">

3.2

</div>

</div>

<div class="method">

itertext()

Creates a text iterator. The iterator loops over this element and all subelements, in document order, and returns all inner text.

<div class="versionadded">

3.2

</div>

</div>

<div class="method">

makeelement(tag, attrib)

Creates a new element object of the same type as this element. Do not call this method, use the `SubElement` factory function instead.

</div>

<div class="method">

remove(subelement)

Removes *subelement* from the element. Unlike the find\* methods this method compares elements based on the instance identity, not on tag value or contents.

</div>

`Element` objects also support the following sequence type methods for working with subelements: `~object.__delitem__`, `~object.__getitem__`, `~object.__setitem__`, `~object.__len__`.

Caution: Elements with no subelements will test as `False`. In a future release of Python, all elements will test as `True` regardless of whether subelements exist. Instead, prefer explicit `len(elem)` or `elem is not None` tests.:

    element = root.find('foo')

    if not element:  # careful!
        print("element not found, or element has no subelements")

    if element is None:
        print("element not found")

<div class="versionchanged">

3.12 Testing the truth value of an Element emits `DeprecationWarning`.

</div>

Prior to Python 3.8, the serialisation order of the XML attributes of elements was artificially made predictable by sorting the attributes by their name. Based on the now guaranteed ordering of dicts, this arbitrary reordering was removed in Python 3.8 to preserve the order in which attributes were originally parsed or created by user code.

In general, user code should try not to depend on a specific ordering of attributes, given that the [XML Information Set](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-infoset/) explicitly excludes the attribute order from conveying information. Code should be prepared to deal with any ordering on input. In cases where deterministic XML output is required, e.g. for cryptographic signing or test data sets, canonical serialisation is available with the `canonicalize` function.

In cases where canonical output is not applicable but a specific attribute order is still desirable on output, code should aim for creating the attributes directly in the desired order, to avoid perceptual mismatches for readers of the code. In cases where this is difficult to achieve, a recipe like the following can be applied prior to serialisation to enforce an order independently from the Element creation:

    def reorder_attributes(root):
        for el in root.iter():
            attrib = el.attrib
            if len(attrib) > 1:
                # adjust attribute order, e.g. by sorting
                attribs = sorted(attrib.items())
                attrib.clear()
                attrib.update(attribs)

</div>

### ElementTree Objects

<div class="ElementTree(element=None, file=None)">

ElementTree wrapper class. This class represents an entire element hierarchy, and adds some extra support for serialization to and from standard XML.

*element* is the root element. The tree is initialized with the contents of the XML *file* if given.

<div class="method">

<span id="setroot">setroot</span>(element)

Replaces the root element for this tree. This discards the current contents of the tree, and replaces it with the given element. Use with care. *element* is an element instance.

</div>

<div class="method">

find(match, namespaces=None)

Same as `Element.find`, starting at the root of the tree.

</div>

<div class="method">

findall(match, namespaces=None)

Same as `Element.findall`, starting at the root of the tree.

</div>

<div class="method">

findtext(match, default=None, namespaces=None)

Same as `Element.findtext`, starting at the root of the tree.

</div>

<div class="method">

getroot()

Returns the root element for this tree.

</div>

<div class="method">

iter(tag=None)

Creates and returns a tree iterator for the root element. The iterator loops over all elements in this tree, in section order. *tag* is the tag to look for (default is to return all elements).

</div>

<div class="method">

iterfind(match, namespaces=None)

Same as `Element.iterfind`, starting at the root of the tree.

<div class="versionadded">

3.2

</div>

</div>

<div class="method">

parse(source, parser=None)

Loads an external XML section into this element tree. *source* is a file name or `file object`. *parser* is an optional parser instance. If not given, the standard `XMLParser` parser is used. Returns the section root element.

</div>

<div class="method">

write(file, encoding="us-ascii", xml_declaration=None, default_namespace=None, method="xml", \*, short_empty_elements=True, standalone=None)

Writes the element tree to a file, as XML. *file* is a file name, or a `file object` opened for writing. *encoding*[^3] is the output encoding (default is US-ASCII). *xml_declaration* controls if an XML declaration should be added to the file. Use `False` for never, `True` for always, `None` for only if not US-ASCII or UTF-8 or Unicode (default is `None`). *default_namespace* sets the default XML namespace (for "xmlns"). *method* is either `"xml"`, `"html"` or `"text"` (default is `"xml"`). The keyword-only *short_empty_elements* parameter controls the formatting of elements that contain no content. If `True` (the default), they are emitted as a single self-closed tag, otherwise they are emitted as a pair of start/end tags.

The keyword-only *standalone* parameter is the value of the standalone document declaration in the XML declaration. Use `True` for `standalone="yes"`, `False` for `standalone="no"`, and `None` (the default) to omit it. An XML declaration is written if *standalone* is not `None`; combining it with `xml_declaration=False` raises a `ValueError`.

The output is either a string (`str`) or binary (`bytes`). This is controlled by the *encoding* argument. If *encoding* is `"unicode"`, the output is a string; otherwise, it's binary. Note that this may conflict with the type of *file* if it's an open `file object`; make sure you do not try to write a string to a binary stream and vice versa.

<div class="versionchanged">

3.4 Added the *short_empty_elements* parameter.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.8 The `write` method now preserves the attribute order specified by the user.

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.16 Added the *standalone* parameter.

</div>

</div>

</div>

This is the XML file that is going to be manipulated:

    <html>
        <head>
            <title>Example page</title>
        </head>
        <body>
            <p>Moved to <a href="http://example.org/">example.org</a>
            or <a href="http://example.com/">example.com</a>.</p>
        </body>
    </html>

Example of changing the attribute "target" of every link in first paragraph:

    >>> from xml.etree.ElementTree import ElementTree
    >>> tree = ElementTree()
    >>> tree.parse("index.xhtml")
    <Element 'html' at 0xb77e6fac>
    >>> p = tree.find("body/p")     # Finds first occurrence of tag p in body
    >>> p
    <Element 'p' at 0xb77ec26c>
    >>> links = list(p.iter("a"))   # Returns list of all links
    >>> links
    [<Element 'a' at 0xb77ec2ac>, <Element 'a' at 0xb77ec1cc>]
    >>> for i in links:             # Iterates through all found links
    ...     i.attrib["target"] = "blank"
    ...
    >>> tree.write("output.xhtml")

### QName Objects

<div class="QName(text_or_uri, tag=None)">

QName wrapper. This can be used to wrap a QName attribute value, in order to get proper namespace handling on output. *text_or_uri* is a string containing the QName value, in the form {uri}local, or, if the tag argument is given, the URI part of a QName. If *tag* is given, the first argument is interpreted as a URI, and this argument is interpreted as a local name. `QName` instances are opaque.

</div>

### TreeBuilder Objects

<div class="TreeBuilder(element_factory=None, *, comment_factory=None, \ pi_factory=None, insert_comments=False, insert_pis=False)">

Generic element structure builder. This builder converts a sequence of start, data, end, comment and pi method calls to a well-formed element structure. You can use this class to build an element structure using a custom XML parser, or a parser for some other XML-like format.

*element_factory*, when given, must be a callable accepting two positional arguments: a tag and a dict of attributes. It is expected to return a new element instance.

The *comment_factory* and *pi_factory* functions, when given, should behave like the `Comment` and `ProcessingInstruction` functions to create comments and processing instructions. When not given, the default factories will be used. When *insert_comments* and/or *insert_pis* is true, comments/pis will be inserted into the tree if they appear within the root element (but not outside of it).

<div class="method">

close()

Flushes the builder buffers, and returns the toplevel document element. Returns an `Element` instance.

</div>

<div class="method">

data(data)

Adds text to the current element. *data* is a string.

</div>

<div class="method">

end(tag)

Closes the current element. *tag* is the element name. Returns the closed element.

</div>

<div class="method">

start(tag, attrs)

Opens a new element. *tag* is the element name. *attrs* is a dictionary containing element attributes. Returns the opened element.

</div>

<div class="method">

comment(text)

Creates a comment with the given *text*. If `insert_comments` is true, this will also add it to the tree.

<div class="versionadded">

3.8

</div>

</div>

<div class="method">

pi(target, text)

Creates a process instruction with the given *target* name and *text*. If `insert_pis` is true, this will also add it to the tree.

<div class="versionadded">

3.8

</div>

</div>

In addition, a custom `TreeBuilder` object can provide the following methods:

<div class="method">

doctype(name, pubid, system)

Handles a doctype declaration. *name* is the doctype name. *pubid* is the public identifier. *system* is the system identifier. This method does not exist on the default `TreeBuilder` class.

<div class="versionadded">

3.2

</div>

</div>

<div class="method">

start_ns(prefix, uri)

Is called whenever the parser encounters a new namespace declaration, before the `start()` callback for the opening element that defines it. *prefix* is `''` for the default namespace and the declared namespace prefix name otherwise. *uri* is the namespace URI.

<div class="versionadded">

3.8

</div>

</div>

<div class="method">

end_ns(prefix)

Is called after the `end()` callback of an element that declared a namespace prefix mapping, with the name of the *prefix* that went out of scope.

<div class="versionadded">

3.8

</div>

</div>

</div>

<div class="C14NWriterTarget(write, *, \ with_comments=False, strip_text=False, rewrite_prefixes=False, \ qname_aware_tags=None, qname_aware_attrs=None, \ exclude_attrs=None, exclude_tags=None)">

A [C14N 2.0](https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n2/) writer. Arguments are the same as for the `canonicalize` function. This class does not build a tree but translates the callback events directly into a serialised form using the *write* function.

<div class="versionadded">

3.8

</div>

</div>

### XMLParser Objects

<div class="XMLParser(*, target=None, encoding=None)">

This class is the low-level building block of the module. It uses `xml.parsers.expat` for efficient, event-based parsing of XML. It can be fed XML data incrementally with the `feed` method, and parsing events are translated to a push API - by invoking callbacks on the *target* object. If *target* is omitted, the standard `TreeBuilder` is used. If *encoding*[^4] is given, the value overrides the encoding specified in the XML file.

<div class="versionchanged">

3.8 Parameters are now `keyword-only <keyword-only_parameter>`. The *html* argument is no longer supported.

</div>

<div class="method">

close()

Finishes feeding data to the parser. Returns the result of calling the `close()` method of the *target* passed during construction; by default, this is the toplevel document element.

</div>

<div class="method">

feed(data)

Feeds data to the parser. *data* is a string or encoded data (`bytes` or a `bytes-like object`).

</div>

<div class="method">

flush()

Triggers parsing of any previously fed unparsed data, which can be used to ensure more immediate feedback, in particular with Expat \>=2.6.0. The implementation of `flush` temporarily disables reparse deferral with Expat (if currently enabled) and triggers a reparse. Disabling reparse deferral has security consequences; please see `xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled` for details.

`!flush` has been backported to some prior releases of CPython as a security fix. Check for availability using `hasattr` if used in code running across a variety of Python versions.

<div class="versionadded">

3.13

</div>

</div>

`XMLParser.feed` calls *target*'s `start(tag, attrs_dict)` method for each opening tag, its `end(tag)` method for each closing tag, and data is processed by method `data(data)`. For further supported callback methods, see the `TreeBuilder` class. `XMLParser.close` calls *target*'s method `close()`. `XMLParser` can be used not only for building a tree structure. This is an example of counting the maximum depth of an XML file:

    >>> from xml.etree.ElementTree import XMLParser
    >>> class MaxDepth:                     # The target object of the parser
    ...     maxDepth = 0
    ...     depth = 0
    ...     def start(self, tag, attrib):   # Called for each opening tag.
    ...         self.depth += 1
    ...         if self.depth > self.maxDepth:
    ...             self.maxDepth = self.depth
    ...     def end(self, tag):             # Called for each closing tag.
    ...         self.depth -= 1
    ...     def data(self, data):
    ...         pass            # We do not need to do anything with data.
    ...     def close(self):    # Called when all data has been parsed.
    ...         return self.maxDepth
    ...
    >>> target = MaxDepth()
    >>> parser = XMLParser(target=target)
    >>> exampleXml = """
    ... <a>
    ...   <b>
    ...   </b>
    ...   <b>
    ...     <c>
    ...       <d>
    ...       </d>
    ...     </c>
    ...   </b>
    ... </a>"""
    >>> parser.feed(exampleXml)
    >>> parser.close()
    4

</div>

### XMLPullParser Objects

<div class="XMLPullParser(events=None, *, target=None)">

A pull parser suitable for non-blocking applications. Its input-side API is similar to that of `XMLParser`, but instead of pushing calls to a callback target, `XMLPullParser` collects an internal list of parsing events and lets the user read from it. *events* is a sequence of events to report back. The supported events are the strings `"start"`, `"end"`, `"comment"`, `"pi"`, `"start-ns"` and `"end-ns"` (the "ns" events are used to get detailed namespace information). If *events* is omitted, only `"end"` events are reported.

*target* is the target object of the underlying `XMLParser`. If omitted, the standard `TreeBuilder` is used, and the reported objects are `Element` instances. With other targets the reported object is the value returned by the corresponding method of the target, so no tree is built if the target does not build one. The target must implement the methods for all requested events, except `!start_ns` and `!end_ns`: if they are not implemented, a `(prefix, uri)` tuple and `None` are reported for the `"start-ns"` and `"end-ns"` events.

<div class="versionchanged">

3.16 Added the *target* parameter.

</div>

<div class="method">

feed(data)

Feed the given data to the parser. *data* is a string or encoded data (`bytes` or a `bytes-like object`).

</div>

<div class="method">

flush()

Triggers parsing of any previously fed unparsed data, which can be used to ensure more immediate feedback, in particular with Expat \>=2.6.0. The implementation of `flush` temporarily disables reparse deferral with Expat (if currently enabled) and triggers a reparse. Disabling reparse deferral has security consequences; please see `xml.parsers.expat.xmlparser.SetReparseDeferralEnabled` for details.

`!flush` has been backported to some prior releases of CPython as a security fix. Check for availability using `hasattr` if used in code running across a variety of Python versions.

<div class="versionadded">

3.13

</div>

</div>

<div class="method">

close()

Signal the parser that the data stream is terminated. Unlike `XMLParser.close`, this method always returns `None`. Any events not yet retrieved when the parser is closed can still be read with `read_events`.

</div>

<div class="method">

read_events()

Return an iterator over the events which have been encountered in the data fed to the parser. The iterator yields `(event, obj)` pairs, where *event* is a string representing the type of event (e.g. `"end"`) and *obj* is the object returned by the corresponding method of the target. With the standard `TreeBuilder` it is as follows.

- `start`, `end`: the current Element.
- `comment`, `pi`: the current comment / processing instruction
- `start-ns`: a tuple `(prefix, uri)` naming the declared namespace mapping.
- `end-ns`: `None` (this may change in a future version)

Events provided in a previous call to `read_events` will not be yielded again. Events are consumed from the internal queue only when they are retrieved from the iterator, so multiple readers iterating in parallel over iterators obtained from `read_events` will have unpredictable results.

</div>

> [!NOTE]
> `XMLPullParser` only guarantees that it has seen the "\>" character of a starting tag when it emits a "start" event, so the attributes are defined, but the contents of the text and tail attributes are undefined at that point. The same applies to the element children; they may or may not be present.
>
> If you need a fully populated element, look for "end" events instead.

<div class="versionadded">

3.4

</div>

<div class="versionchanged">

3.8 The `comment` and `pi` events were added.

</div>

</div>

### Exceptions

<div class="ParseError">

XML parse error, raised by the various parsing methods in this module when parsing fails. The string representation of an instance of this exception will contain a user-friendly error message. In addition, it will have the following attributes available:

<div class="attribute">

code

A numeric error code from the expat parser. See the documentation of `xml.parsers.expat` for the list of error codes and their meanings.

</div>

<div class="attribute">

position

A tuple of *line*, *column* numbers, specifying where the error occurred.

</div>

</div>

**Footnotes**

[^1]: The encoding string included in XML output should conform to the appropriate standards. For example, "UTF-8" is valid, but "UTF8" is not. See <https://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#NT-EncodingDecl> and <https://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets/character-sets.xhtml>.

[^2]: The encoding string included in XML output should conform to the appropriate standards. For example, "UTF-8" is valid, but "UTF8" is not. See <https://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#NT-EncodingDecl> and <https://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets/character-sets.xhtml>.

[^3]: The encoding string included in XML output should conform to the appropriate standards. For example, "UTF-8" is valid, but "UTF8" is not. See <https://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#NT-EncodingDecl> and <https://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets/character-sets.xhtml>.

[^4]: The encoding string included in XML output should conform to the appropriate standards. For example, "UTF-8" is valid, but "UTF8" is not. See <https://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/#NT-EncodingDecl> and <https://www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets/character-sets.xhtml>.