CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonlxml
Tommz
Tommz

Reputation: 3453

lxml - how to remove element but not it's content?

Let's assume I have following code:

<div id="first">
  <div id="second">
    <a></a>
    <ul>...</ul>
  </div>
</div>

Here's my code: 

div_parents = root_element.xpath('//div[div]')

for div in reversed(div_parents): 
    if len(div.getchildren()) == 1:
        # remove second div and replace it with it's content

I'm reaching div's with div children and then I want to remove the child div if that's the only child it's parent has. The result should be:

<div id="first">
   <a></a>
   <ul>...</ul>
</div>

I wanted to do it with: 

div.replace(div.getchildren()[0], div.getchildren()[0].getchildren())

but unfortunatelly, both arguments on replace should consist of only one element. Is there something easier than reassigning all properties of first div to second div and then replacing both? - because I could do it easily with:

div.getparent().replace(div, div.getchildren()[0])

Upvotes: 0

Views: 426

Answers (2)

deets
deets

Reputation: 6395

I'd just use list-replacement:

 from lxml.etree import fromstring, tostring

 xml = """<div id="first">
   <div id="second">
     <a></a>
     <ul>...</ul>
   </div>
 </div>"""


 doc = fromstring(xml)
 outer_divs = doc.xpath("//div[div]")

 for outer in outer_divs:
     outer[:] = list(outer[0])


 print tostring(doc)

Upvotes: 1

jedwards
jedwards

Reputation: 30210

Consider using copy.deepcopy as suggested in the docs:

For example:

div_parents = root_element.xpath('//div[div]')

for outer_div in div_parents:
    if len(outer_div.getchildren()) == 1:
        inner_div = outer_div[0]
        # Copy the children of innder_div to outer_div
        for e in inner_div: outer_div.append( copy.deepcopy(e) )
        # Remove inner_div from outer_div
        outer_div.remove(inner_div)

Full code used to test:

import copy
import lxml.etree

def pprint(e): print(lxml.etree.tostring(e, pretty_print=True))

xml = '''
<body>
    <div id="first">
      <div id="second">
        <a>...</a>
        <ul>...</ul>
      </div>
    </div>
</body>
'''

root_element = lxml.etree.fromstring(xml)
div_parents = root_element.xpath('//div[div]')

for outer_div in div_parents:
    if len(outer_div.getchildren()) == 1:
        inner_div = outer_div[0]
        # Copy the children of innder_div to outer_div
        for e in inner_div: outer_div.append( copy.deepcopy(e) )
        # Remove inner_div from outer_div
        outer_div.remove(inner_div)

pprint(root_element)

Output:

<body>
    <div id="first">
      <a>...</a>
        <ul>...</ul>
      </div>
</body>

Note: The enclosing <body> tag in the test code is unnecessary, I was just using it for testing multiple cases. The test code operates without issue on your input.

Upvotes: 1

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