Ultiseeker
Ultiseeker

Reputation: 181

Python write multiple xml structures in one xml file with ElementTree

I'm trying to write an xml file with ElementTree. GeeksforGeeks have a great tutorial for that. The problem i'm facing is that I want to write multiple xml structures in the same xml file.

The xml file that is created during the tutorial is as follows:

Current output

<chess>
    <Opening>
        <E4 type="Accepted">King's Gambit Accepted</E4>
        <D4 type="Declined">Queen's Gambit Declined</D4>
    </Opening>
</chess>

What I want to create with a loop is the following:

Desired output

<chess>
    <Opening>
        <E4 type="Accepted">King's Gambit Accepted</E4>
        <D4 type="Declined">Queen's Gambit Declined</D4>
    </Opening>
</chess>
<chess>
    <Opening>
        <E4 type="Accepted">King's Gambit Accepted</E4>
        <D4 type="Declined">Queen's Gambit Declined</D4>
    </Opening>
</chess>
<chess>
    <Opening>
        <E4 type="Accepted">King's Gambit Accepted</E4>
        <D4 type="Declined">Queen's Gambit Declined</D4>
    </Opening>
</chess>

I've tried to use a loopfunction and the loop is working but the writing to an xml file isn't working. my code looks like this.

CODE

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
test = [1,2,3]
l = []

for i in test:
    data = ET.Element('chess')
    element1 = ET.SubElement(data, 'Opening')
    s_elem1 = ET.SubElement(element1, 'E4')
    s_elem2 = ET.SubElement(element1, 'D4')
    s_elem1.set('type', 'Accepted')
    s_elem2.set('type', 'Declined')
    s_elem1.text = "King's Gambit Accepted"
    s_elem2.text = "Queen's Gambit Declined"
    b_xml = ET.tostring(data)
    l.append(b_xml)

output = bytearray(l)

with open("output.xml", "wb") as f:
    f.write(l)

Error message

TypeError: an integer is required

Is there a way to create multiple structures in one xml file and write it to an output file?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 650

Answers (1)

Maurice Meyer
Maurice Meyer

Reputation: 18106

You need to have at least one root element in XML, to append the children to:

from lxml import etree
test = [1, 2, 3]
l = []

xmlRoot = etree.Element('root')

for i in test:
    data = etree.SubElement(xmlRoot, 'chess')
    element1 = etree.SubElement(data, 'Opening')
    s_elem1 = etree.SubElement(element1, 'E4')
    s_elem2 = etree.SubElement(element1, 'D4')
    s_elem1.set('type', 'Accepted')
    s_elem2.set('type', 'Declined')
    s_elem1.text = "King's Gambit Accepted"
    s_elem2.text = "Queen's Gambit Declined"

doc = etree.ElementTree(xmlRoot) # convert into elementtree and write it directly into a file
with open("output.xml", "wb") as f:
    f.write(
        etree.tostring(
            doc, pretty_print=True, xml_declaration=True, encoding='utf-8'
        )
    )

print(open("output.xml").read())

Out:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<root>
  <chess>
    <Opening>
      <E4 type="Accepted">King's Gambit Accepted</E4>
      <D4 type="Declined">Queen's Gambit Declined</D4>
    </Opening>
  </chess>
  <chess>
    <Opening>
      <E4 type="Accepted">King's Gambit Accepted</E4>
      <D4 type="Declined">Queen's Gambit Declined</D4>
    </Opening>
  </chess>
  <chess>
    <Opening>
      <E4 type="Accepted">King's Gambit Accepted</E4>
      <D4 type="Declined">Queen's Gambit Declined</D4>
    </Opening>
  </chess>
</root>

Upvotes: 1

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