Creating XML with lxml.objectify

Explore how to create XML structures using Python's lxml.objectify module. Understand how to build XML elements with dot notation, manage attributes, and format output cleanly with lxml's etree functions. This lesson helps you gain practical skills to generate and manipulate XML data programmatically.

We'll cover the following...

Wrapping Up

XML

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<zAppointments reminder="15">
    <appointment>
        <begin>1181251680</begin>
        <uid>040000008200E000</uid>
        <alarmTime>1181572063</alarmTime>
        <state></state>
        <location></location>
        <duration>1800</duration>
        <subject>Bring pizza home</subject>
    </appointment>
    <appointment>
        <begin>1234360800</begin>
        <duration>1800</duration>
        <subject>Check MS Office website for updates</subject>
        <location></location>
        <uid>604f4792-eb89-478b-a14f-dd34d3cc6c21-1234360800</uid>
        <state>dismissed</state>
  </appointment>
</zAppointments>

Python

from lxml import etree, objectify
def create_appt(data):
    """
    Create an appointment XML element
    """
    appt = objectify.Element("appointment")
    appt.begin = data["begin"]
    appt.uid = data["uid"]
    appt.alarmTime = data["alarmTime"]
    appt.state = data["state"]
    appt.location = data["location"]
    appt.duration = data["duration"]
    appt.subject = data["subject"]
    return appt
def create_xml():
    """
    Create an XML file
    """
    xml = '''<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <zAppointments>
    </zAppointments>
    '''
    root = objectify.fromstring(xml)
    root.set("reminder", "15")
    appt = create_appt({"begin":1181251680,
                        "uid":"040000008200E000",
                        "alarmTime":1181572063,
                        "state":"",
                        "location":"",
                        "duration":1800,
                        "subject":"Bring pizza home"}
                       )
    root.append(appt)
    uid = "604f4792-eb89-478b-a14f-dd34d3cc6c21-1234360800"
    appt = create_appt({"begin":1234360800,
                        "uid":uid,
                        "alarmTime":1181572063,
                        "state":"dismissed",
                        "location":"",
                        "duration":1800,
                        "subject":"Check MS Office website for updates"}
                       )
    root.append(appt)
    # remove lxml annotation
    objectify.deannotate(root)
    etree.cleanup_namespaces(root)
    # create the xml string
    obj_xml = etree.tostring(root,
                             pretty_print=True,
                             xml_declaration=True)
    try:
        with open("example.xml", "wb") as xml_writer:
            xml_writer.write(obj_xml)
    except IOError:
        pass
if __name__ == "__main__":
    create_xml()