How to add comments in XML using python

Question

XML i am parsing:

<List>
    <Item>
        <Price>
            <Amount>100</Amount>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Apple</Name>
            </Next_Item>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Orange</Name>
            </Next_Item>
        </Price>
         <Price>
            <Amount>200</Amount>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Apple</Name>
            </Next_Item>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Orange</Name>
            </Next_Item>
        </Price>
    </Item>
</List>

In Output XML i want to add a comment above Next_Item:

<List>
    <Item>
        <Price>
            <Amount>100</Amount>
            <!--Not-Needed-->
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Apple</Name>
            </Next_Item>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Orange</Name>
            </Next_Item>
        </Price>
         <Price>
            <Amount>200</Amount>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Apple</Name>
            </Next_Item>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Orange</Name>
            </Next_Item>
        </Price>
    </Item>
</List>

I tried following:

doc = etree.parse('XML1')
for id in doc.xpath('//Item/Price/Next_Item/text()'):
id = etree.Comment('Not-Needed')
root = doc.getroot()
 root.insert(1, comment)

Its adding comment at the top of file instead of above ‘next_item’ element.

As here

root.insert(1, comment) [1 is index]

so is there a way where instead of index number i can pass a variable so i can add comment to number of places . for example whenever it finds ‘next_item’ it has to add a comment

output i am getting is:

<List>
<!--Not-Needed--><!--Not-Needed--><!--Not-Needed--><!--Not-Needed--><!--Not-Needed--><!--Not-Needed--><!--Not-Needed--><!--Not-Needed-->
    <Item>
        <Price>
            <Amount>100</Amount>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Apple</Name>
            </Next_Item>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Orange</Name>
            </Next_Item>
        </Price>
         <Price>
            <Amount>200</Amount>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Apple</Name>
            </Next_Item>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Orange</Name>
            </Next_Item>
        </Price>
    </Item>
</List>

Grateful for your help.

Asked By: Anonymous

||

Source

Answer 1

I think this is a good use case for an XSLT transformation and lxml supports XSLT 1.0:

<xsl:stylesheet
    .write_output("result1.xml")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    xslt_usage_example()

Answered By: Martin Honnen

Answer 2

Try the below (Note that no external lib is required)

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

xml = '''<List>
    <Item>
        <Price>
            <Amount>100</Amount>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Apple</Name>
            </Next_Item>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Orange</Name>
            </Next_Item>
        </Price>
         <Price>
            <Amount>200</Amount>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Apple</Name>
            </Next_Item>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Orange</Name>
            </Next_Item>
        </Price>
    </Item>
</List>'''
root = ET.fromstring(xml)
first_price = root.find('.//Item/Price')
first_price.insert(1, ET.Comment('Not-Needed'))
ET.dump(root)

output

<List>
    <Item>
        <Price>
            <Amount>100</Amount>
            <!--Not-Needed-->
             <Next_Item>
                <Name>Apple</Name>
            </Next_Item>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Orange</Name>
            </Next_Item>
        </Price>
         <Price>
            <Amount>200</Amount>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Apple</Name>
            </Next_Item>
            <Next_Item>
                <Name>Orange</Name>
            </Next_Item>
        </Price>
    </Item>
</List>

Answered By: balderman

How to add comments in XML using python

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