How to get all sub-elements of an element tree with Python ElementTree?
Question:
I want to find a way to get all the sub-elements of an element tree like the way ElementTree.getchildren() does, since getchildren() is deprecated since Python version 2.7.
I don’t want to use it anymore, though I can still use it currently.
Answers:
All sub-elements (descendants) of elem:
all_descendants = list(elem.iter())
A more complete example:
>>> import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
>>> a = ET.Element('a')
>>> b = ET.SubElement(a, 'b')
>>> c = ET.SubElement(a, 'c')
>>> d = ET.SubElement(a, 'd')
>>> e = ET.SubElement(b, 'e')
>>> f = ET.SubElement(d, 'f')
>>> g = ET.SubElement(d, 'g')
>>> [elem.tag for elem in a.iter()]
['a', 'b', 'e', 'c', 'd', 'f', 'g']
To exclude the root itself:
>>> [elem.tag for elem in a.iter() if elem is not a]
['b', 'e', 'c', 'd', 'f', 'g']
If you want to get all elements ‘a’, you can use:
a_lst = list(elem.iter('a'))
If the elem is also ‘a’, it will be included.
None of the existing answers will find all children. This solution uses BeautifulSoup instead of ETree, but will find all children, instead of just top-level:
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
with open(filename) as f:
soup = BeautifulSoup(f, 'xml')
results = soup.find_all('element_name')
in the pydoc it is mentioned to use list() method over the node to get child elements.
list(elem)
Maybe this does not correspond to OP actual question but in a greater sense I would suggest that if someone want to get all elements named with a certain name e.g. ‘object’ can use (an alternative approach to @Turtles Are Cute which to me at least seems more natural):
objs = tree.findall('object')
which also returns a list.
I want to find a way to get all the sub-elements of an element tree like the way ElementTree.getchildren() does, since getchildren() is deprecated since Python version 2.7.
I don’t want to use it anymore, though I can still use it currently.
All sub-elements (descendants) of elem:
all_descendants = list(elem.iter())
A more complete example:
>>> import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
>>> a = ET.Element('a')
>>> b = ET.SubElement(a, 'b')
>>> c = ET.SubElement(a, 'c')
>>> d = ET.SubElement(a, 'd')
>>> e = ET.SubElement(b, 'e')
>>> f = ET.SubElement(d, 'f')
>>> g = ET.SubElement(d, 'g')
>>> [elem.tag for elem in a.iter()]
['a', 'b', 'e', 'c', 'd', 'f', 'g']
To exclude the root itself:
>>> [elem.tag for elem in a.iter() if elem is not a]
['b', 'e', 'c', 'd', 'f', 'g']
If you want to get all elements ‘a’, you can use:
a_lst = list(elem.iter('a'))
If the elem is also ‘a’, it will be included.
None of the existing answers will find all children. This solution uses BeautifulSoup instead of ETree, but will find all children, instead of just top-level:
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
with open(filename) as f:
soup = BeautifulSoup(f, 'xml')
results = soup.find_all('element_name')
in the pydoc it is mentioned to use list() method over the node to get child elements.
list(elem)
Maybe this does not correspond to OP actual question but in a greater sense I would suggest that if someone want to get all elements named with a certain name e.g. ‘object’ can use (an alternative approach to @Turtles Are Cute which to me at least seems more natural):
objs = tree.findall('object')
which also returns a list.