How to traverse through XML document tags using lxml similarly to ElementTree

Question

Currently I'm editing XML document, where I have to edit few tags and their attributes. Up to now I was using ElementTree library, however I encountered problems with namespace preservation, so I'm trying to rewrite my script to use lxml. ElementTree however was very logical for me in case of traversing through the document tags. Below as an example, I'll provide code that will remove Ext tag in XML, and change Resolution tag text to different value.

ElementTree:

namespaces = dict([elem for _, elem in ET.iterparse(adiPath, events=['start-ns'])])
for ns in namespaces:
    ET.register_namespace(ns, namespaces[ns])
for asset in root.findall('.//{*}Asset'):
    if 'title:TitleType' in asset.attrib.values():
        ext = asset.find('.//{*}Ext')
        if ext != None:
            asset.remove(ext)
    if 'content:PreviewType' in asset.attrib.values():
            resolution = asset.find(".//{*}Resolution")
            resolution.text = 'different value'

Is it possible to iterate through XML file in similar way to above mentioned, but instead of ET use lxml?

XML File:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ADI3 xmlns="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:core:3.0"
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
      xmlns:content="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:content:3.0"
      xmlns:core="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:core:3.0"
      xmlns:offer="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:offer:3.0"
      xmlns:terms="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:terms:3.0"
      xmlns:title="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:title:3.0"
      xmlns:adb="urn:adb:md:xsd:adb:01"
      xmlns:schemaLocation="urn:adb:md:xsd:adb:01 ADB-EXT-C01.xsd urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:core:3.0 MD-SP-CORE-C01.xsd urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:content:3.0 MD-SP-CONTENT-C01.xsd urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:offer:3.0 MD-SP-OFFER-C01.xsd urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:terms:3.0 MD-SP-TERMS-C01.xsd urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:title:3.0 MD-SP-TITLE-C01.xsd"
      xmlns:xml="http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace">
  <Asset xsi:type="title:TitleType" uriId="ID" providerVersionNum="5"
     internalVersionNum="0" creationDateTime="2020-04-22T00:00:00Z"
     startDateTime="2020-03-24T09:00:00Z" endDateTime="2022-10-06T23:59:00Z">
    <AlternateId identifierSystem="VOD1.1">ID</AlternateId>
    <ProviderQAContact>Contact</ProviderQAContact>
    <Ext>
      <adb:ExtensionType>
        <adb:TitleExt>
          <adb:SeriesInfo episodeNumber="16">
            <adb:series seriesId="106585" seasonCount="2"/>
            <adb:season seasonId="106586" number="1" episodeCount="22"/>
          </adb:SeriesInfo>
        </adb:TitleExt>
      </adb:ExtensionType>
    </Ext>
    <title:LocalizableTitle xml:lang="pol">
      <title:TitleLong>BATWOMAN EP. 16 - THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS</title:TitleLong>
      <title:SummaryLong> Very long summary...</title:SummaryLong>
      <title:Actor fullName="Ruby Rose" firstName="Ruby" lastName="Rose"/>
      <title:Actor fullName="Rachel Skarsten" firstName="Rachel" lastName="Skarsten"/>
      <title:Actor fullName="Meagan Tandy" firstName="Meagan" lastName="Tandy"/>
      <title:Actor fullName="Camrus Johnson" firstName="Camrus" lastName="Johnson"/>
      <title:Director fullName="Sudz Sutherland" firstName="Sudz" lastName="Sutherland"/>
    </title:LocalizableTitle>
    <title:Rating ratingSystem="PL">12</title:Rating>
    <title:DisplayRunTime>00:40</title:DisplayRunTime>
    <title:Year>2019</title:Year>
    <title:CountryOfOrigin>US</title:CountryOfOrigin>
    <title:Genre>Genre</title:Genre>
    <title:ShowType>Movie</title:ShowType>
  </Asset>
  <Asset xsi:type="offer:CategoryType" uriId="ID">
    <AlternateId identifierSystem="VOD1.1">ID</AlternateId>
    <offer:CategoryPath>Path</offer:CategoryPath>
  </Asset>
  <Asset xsi:type="content:MovieType" uriId="namemp4">
    <AlternateId identifierSystem="VOD1.1">namemp4</AlternateId>
    <content:SourceUrl>name.mp4</content:SourceUrl>
    <content:Resolution>resolution</content:Resolution>
    <content:Duration>PT0H40M40S</content:Duration>
    <content:Language>pol</content:Language>
    <content:SubtitleLanguage>pol</content:SubtitleLanguage>
    <content:SubtitleLanguage>eng</content:SubtitleLanguage>
  </Asset>
  <Asset uriId="ID" xsi:type="content:MovieType">
    <AlternateId identifierSystem="VOD1.1">ID</AlternateId>
    <Provider>Prov</Provider>
    <content:SourceUrl>sub.srt</content:SourceUrl>
  </Asset>
  <Asset uriId="ID" xsi:type="content:MovieType">
    <AlternateId identifierSystem="VOD1.1">ID</AlternateId>
    <Provider>Prov</Provider>
    <content:SourceUrl>sub.srt</content:SourceUrl>
  </Asset>
  <Asset xsi:type="content:PosterType" uriId="ID">
    <AlternateId identifierSystem="VOD1.1">ID</AlternateId>
    <content:SourceUrl>poster.jpg</content:SourceUrl>
    <content:X_Resolution>700</content:X_Resolution>
    <content:Y_Resolution>1000</content:Y_Resolution>
    <content:Language>pol</content:Language>
  </Asset>
  <Asset xsi:type="offer:ContentGroupType" uriId="ID">
    <AlternateId identifierSystem="VOD1.1">ID</AlternateId>
    <offer:TitleRef uriId="ID"/>
    <offer:MovieRef uriId="namets"/>
    <offer:MovieRef uriId="subs"/>
    <offer:MovieRef uriId="subs"/>
  </Asset>
  <Asset xsi:type="offer:ContentGroupType" uriId="ID">
    <AlternateId identifierSystem="VOD1.1">ID</AlternateId>
    <offer:TitleRef uriId="ID"/>
    <offer:MovieRef uriId="poster"/> 
  </Asset>
</ADI3>

Answer 1

Observations about your input document:

• The document defines the default namespace (xmlns="...") as urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:core:3.0.
• It defines the same namespace a second time as "core" (xmlns:core="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:core:3.0").
• xmlns:schemaLocation is wrong and should be xsi:schemaLocation.
• the namespace called "terms" (urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:terms:3.0) is not used at all.

When you read this document and write it again, as your code sample does it, all the information is retained.

But there is no guarantee that the output document is a character-by-character copy of the input document. That's not how XML works, and it's an unreasonable expectation. The guarantee that matters is that the output document is semantically equivalent to the input document.

When your code runs, it produces this output (abridged):

<core:ADI3
  xmlns:adb="urn:adb:md:xsd:adb:01"
  xmlns:content="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:content:3.0"
  xmlns:core="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:core:3.0" 
  xmlns:offer="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:offer:3.0"
  xmlns:title="urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:title:3.0" 
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
>
  <core:Asset xsi:type="title:TitleType" uriId="ID" providerVersionNum="5" internalVersionNum="0" creationDateTime="2020-04-22T00:00:00Z" startDateTime="2020-03-24T09:00:00Z" endDateTime="2022-10-06T23:59:00Z">
    <core:AlternateId identifierSystem="VOD1.1">ID</core:AlternateId>

    <!-- ... -->

  </core:Asset>
</core:ADI3>

The ADI3 element is still in the urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:core:3.0 namespace, as before. Whether this is achieved via default namespace or via explicit prefix is irrelevant. ElementTree knew a prefix for this namespace - "core" - and decided to use it. There is nothing wrong with that, it's still the same thing.

The namespace urn:cablelabs:md:xsd:terms:3.0 ("terms") is missing from the output because it was unused in the input and keeping unused declarations is pointless.

The same thing applies to the "schemaLocation" - because you wrote it as a namespace declaration (xmlns:schemaLocation), ElementTree saw that this "namespace" was unused and stripped it. Correct would have been an attribute with a namespace (xsi:schemaLocation). When you correct that error, this item will stay in the output.

To sum it all up: You don't have a problem. The output document is the same.