:mod:`xml.dom.minidom` --- Minimal DOM implementation
Source code: :source:`Lib/xml/dom/minidom.py`
:mod:`xml.dom.minidom` is a minimal implementation of the Document Object Model interface, with
:mod:`xml.dom.minidom` --- Minimal DOM implementation
Source code: :source:`Lib/xml/dom/minidom.py`
:mod:`xml.dom.minidom` is a minimal implementation of the Document Object Model interface, with an API similar to that in other languages. It is intended to be simpler than the full DOM and also significantly smaller. Users who are not already proficient with the DOM should consider using the :mod:`xml.etree.ElementTree` module for their XML processing instead
DOM applications typically start by parsing some XML into a DOM. With :mod:`xml.dom.minidom`, this is done through the parse functions:
from xml.dom.minidom import parse, parseString dom1 = parse('c:\\temp\\mydata.xml') # parse an XML file by name datasource = open('c:\\temp\\mydata.xml') dom2 = parse(datasource) # parse an open file dom3 = parseString('<myxml>Some data<empty/> some more data</myxml>')
The :func:`parse` function can take either a filename or an open file object.
If you have XML in a string, you can use the :func:`parseString` function instead:
Both functions return a :class:`Document` object representing the content of the document.
What the :func:`parse` and :func:`parseString` functions do is connect an XML parser with a "DOM builder" that can accept parse events from any SAX parser and convert them into a DOM tree. The name of the functions are perhaps misleading, but are easy to grasp when learning the interfaces. The parsing of the document will be completed before these functions return; it's simply that these functions do not provide a parser implementation themselves.
You can also create a :class:`Document` by calling a method on a "DOM Implementation" object. You can get this object either by calling the :func:`getDOMImplementation` function in the :mod:`xml.dom` package or the :mod:`xml.dom.minidom` module. Once you have a :class:`Document`, you can add child nodes to it to populate the DOM:
from xml.dom.minidom import getDOMImplementation impl = getDOMImplementation() newdoc = impl.createDocument(None, "some_tag", None) top_element = newdoc.documentElement text = newdoc.createTextNode('Some textual content.') top_element.appendChild(text)
Once you have a DOM document object, you can access the parts of your XML document through its properties and methods. These properties are defined in the DOM specification. The main property of the document object is the :attr:`documentElement` property. It gives you the main element in the XML document: the one that holds all others. Here is an example program:
dom3 = parseString("<myxml>Some data</myxml>") assert dom3.documentElement.tagName == "myxml"
When you are finished with a DOM tree, you may optionally call the :meth:`unlink` method to encourage early cleanup of the now-unneeded objects. :meth:`unlink` is a :mod:`xml.dom.minidom`-specific extension to the DOM API that renders the node and its descendants are essentially useless. Otherwise, Python's garbage collector will eventually take care of the objects in the tree.
This example program is a fairly realistic example of a simple program. In this particular case, we do not take much advantage of the flexibility of the DOM.
minidom and the DOM standard
The :mod:`xml.dom.minidom` module is essentially a DOM 1.0-compatible DOM with some DOM 2 features (primarily namespace features).
Usage of the DOM interface in Python is straight-forward. The following mapping rules apply:
- Interfaces are accessed through instance objects. Applications should not instantiate the classes themselves; they should use the creator functions available on the :class:`Document` object. Derived interfaces support all operations (and attributes) from the base interfaces, plus any new operations.
- Operations are used as methods. Since the DOM uses only :keyword:`in` parameters, the arguments are passed in normal order (from left to right). There are no optional arguments. void operations return None.
- IDL attributes map to instance attributes. For compatibility with the OMG IDL language mapping for Python, an attribute foo can also be accessed through accessor methods :meth:`_get_foo` and :meth:`_set_foo`. readonly attributes must not be changed; this is not enforced at runtime.
- The types short int, unsigned int, unsigned long long, and boolean all map to Python integer objects.
- The type DOMString maps to Python strings. :mod:`xml.dom.minidom` supports either bytes or strings, but will normally produce strings. Values of type DOMString may also be None where allowed to have the IDL null value by the DOM specification from the W3C.
- const declarations map to variables in their respective scope (e.g. xml.dom.minidom.Node.PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NO