CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonelementtree
user541686
user541686

Reputation: 210445

How to make Python's ElementTree ignore lack of spaces between quotes and attributes?

When I run

from xml.etree import ElementTree
tree = ElementTree.fromstring('<foo bar=""baz=""></foo>')

I get

xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError: not well-formed (invalid token): line 1, column 11

This is due to the lack of space between "" and baz.

I'm encountering this problem in XML files provided to me by a third party.

Is there any way to make ElementTree be a little less pedantic about the spacing and parse it as if there was a space?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 348

Answers (1)

user541686
user541686

Reputation: 210445

Since it sounds like a solution may not be withing sight...

Until a better solution comes along, here's a hacky workaround for the next poor soul...

def xml_fixup(s):  # give it the XML as a tring
    flags = re.DOTALL
    pat_quotes = '\"[^\"]*\"|\'[^\']*\''
    re_quotes = re.compile('(%s)([^>\\s])' % pat_quotes, flags)  # TODO: cache
    re_pieces = re.compile('([^<]+)|(<)((?:[^\"\'>]+|%s)*)(>)' % pat_quotes, flags)  # TODO: cache
    pieces = re_pieces.findall(s)
    return s[:0].join(map(lambda m: m[0] or m[1] + re_quotes.sub('\\1 \\2', m[2]) + m[3], pieces))

print(xml_fixup('<foo bar=""baz=""></foo>'))  # <foo bar="" baz=""></foo>

Brownie points if you spot bugs in this!

Upvotes: 2

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