Python XML Parsing issue

Question

I have an XML as attached below and using python minidom to parse the build.xml. I am trying below python code to parse and retrieve the "name" and "value" tag. I am trying to retrieve the values for "SE_CONFIG","SE_ARCH","PREBUILDID" which have respective value install-csu,macosx,prebuild_7701.

Having following challenges.

1. What is better pythonic way to retrieve respective name and value pair

2. How should I catch the exception if there is no "value"

   <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
   <build>
     <actions>
       <hudson.model.ParametersAction>
         <parameters>
           <hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
             <name>StartFrom</name>
             <description>&lt;h3&gt;: Trigger downstreamfor this platform&lt;br&gt;</description>
             <value>Fetch_Source</value>
           </hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
           <hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
             <name>SE_CONFIG</name>
             <description></description>
             <value>install-csu</value>
           </hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
           <hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
             <name>EMAIL_RCPT</name>
             <description>Please enter your email address.</description>
             <value></value>
           </hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
           <hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
             <name>SE_ARCH</name>
             <description></description>
             <value>macosx</value>
           </hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
           <hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
             <name>PREBUILDID</name>
             <description></description>
             <value>prebuild_7701</value>
           </hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
           <hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
             <name>RE_DESCRIPTION</name>
             <description></description>
             <value></value>
           </hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
           <hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
             <name>BUILD_PRODUCT</name>
             <description></description>
             <value>release</value>
           </hudson.model.StringParameterValue>
         </parameters>
       </hudson.model.ParametersAction>  
     </actions>
     <number>8065</number>
     <result>SUCCESS</result>
     <duration>3652965</duration>
     <charset>US-ASCII</charset>
     <keepLog>false</keepLog>
     <workspace>/Users/someuser/workspace/build-mac</workspace>
     <hudsonVersion>3.2.1</hudsonVersion>
     <scm class="hudson.scm.NullChangeLogParser"/>
     <culprits/>
   </build>
   

---

    import xml.dom.minidom
    DOMTree=xml.dom.minidom.parse("build.xml")
    collection=DOMTree.documentElement
    string_par=collection.getElementsByTagName("hudson.model.StringParameterValue")
    for each_node in string_par:
       print each_node.getElementsByTagName('name')[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue
       print each_node.getElementsByTagName('value')[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue

    StartFrom
    Fetch_Source
    SE_CONFIG
    install-csu
    EMAIL_RCPT
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 3, in <module
    IndexError: list index out of range

Answer 1

Get it done through ElementTree

    doc =xml.etree.ElementTree.parse('build.xml')
    for node in doc.iter('hudson.model.StringParameterValue'):
        print str(node.find('name').text) + '\t' + str(node.find('value').text)

Answer 2

Since you asked if there is another way, you can try using xml.etree.ElementTree.

There is a cool example in the following link, the tags can be defined in the for loop:

http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1230000000393/ch06.html#_solution_96

I hope it helps.