Easy question on minidom

[Dean Card]

I am using minidom to parse a 20,000 line XML file. I have a few instances
where the number of child nodes of a particular node can be variable in
number. To access them I am doing something like the following...

xmldoc = minidom.parseSt ring(r)
results = xmldoc.childNod es[0]

for myNode in results.childNo des[1].childNodes:
do Stuff with myNode...

problem is I am having a heck of a time trying to access the value of the
node. For instance I get things like this

<DOM Element: PersonName at 0x8391dac>
<DOM Element: PostalAddress at 0x8391f0c>
<DOM Element: VoiceNumber at 0x842a18c>
<DOM Element: VoiceNumber at 0x842a32c>
<DOM Element: E-mail at 0x842a4cc>

But I need the values... any help here?

[Alex Martelli]

Re: Easy question on minidom

Dean Card <mailer@forums. com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> I am using minidom to parse a 20,000 line XML file. I have a few instances
> where the number of child nodes of a particular node can be variable in
> number. To access them I am doing something like the following...
>
> xmldoc = minidom.parseSt ring(r)
> results = xmldoc.childNod es[0]
>
> for myNode in results.childNo des[1].childNodes:
> do Stuff with myNode...
>
> problem is I am having a heck of a time trying to access the value of the
> node. For instance I get things like this
>
> <DOM Element: PersonName at 0x8391dac>
> <DOM Element: PostalAddress at 0x8391f0c>
> <DOM Element: VoiceNumber at 0x842a18c>
> <DOM Element: VoiceNumber at 0x842a32c>
> <DOM Element: E-mail at 0x842a4cc>
>
> But I need the values... any help here?[/color]

Not sure what you mean by "the values" -- if you mean for example the
contents of text data lying under the node, you can access them...:
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> from xml.dom import minidom
>>> s='<foo><bar>un o</bar><baz>dos</baz></foo>'
>>> xmldoc = minidom.parseSt ring(s)
>>> xmldoc.childNod es[0][/color][/color][/color]
<DOM Element: foo at 0x81238>[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> xmldoc.childNod es[0].childNodes[/color][/color][/color]
[<DOM Element: bar at 0x812d8>, <DOM Element: baz at 0x818f0>][color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> for node in xmldoc.childNod es[0].childNodes: print node[/color][/color][/color]
....
<DOM Element: bar at 0x812d8>
<DOM Element: baz at 0x818f0>[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> for node in xmldoc.childNod es[0].childNodes: print[/color][/color][/color]
node.childNodes[0]
....
<DOM Text node "uno">
<DOM Text node "dos">[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> for node in xmldoc.childNod es[0].childNodes: print[/color][/color][/color]
node.childNodes[0].data
....
uno
dos[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>[/color][/color][/color]

i.e., the text node is the .childNodes[0] (or more elegantly the
..firstChild, of course) of the element node containing it, and if you
need that text node's text data, that's its .data attribute.

If you need something else, I suggest you post a small example (like
mine here) with a clear explanation of what exactly it is that you need!


Alex