How to parse xml string having deep structures using python

Question

A similar question is asked here (Python XML Parsing) but I could not reach to the content I am interested in.

I need to extract all the information that is enclosed between the tag patent-classification if the classification-scheme tag value is CPC. There are multiple such element and are enclosed inside patent-classifications tag.

In the example given below, there are three such values: C 07 K 16 22 I , A 61 K 2039 505 A and C 07 K 2317 21 A

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="/3.0/style/exchange.xsl"?>
<ops:world-patent-data xmlns="http://www.epo.org/exchange" xmlns:ops="http://ops.epo.org" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
    <ops:meta name="elapsed-time" value="21"/>
    <exchange-documents>
        <exchange-document system="ops.epo.org" family-id="39103486" country="US" doc-number="2009234106" kind="A1">
            <bibliographic-data>
                <publication-reference>
                    <document-id document-id-type="docdb">
                        <country>US</country>
                        <doc-number>2009234106</doc-number>
                        <kind>A1</kind>
                        <date>20090917</date>
                    </document-id>
                    <document-id document-id-type="epodoc">
                        <doc-number>US2009234106</doc-number>
                        <date>20090917</date>
                    </document-id>
                </publication-reference>
                <classifications-ipcr>
                    <classification-ipcr sequence="1">
                        <text>C07K  16/    44            A I                    </text>
                    </classification-ipcr>
                </classifications-ipcr>
                <patent-classifications>
                    <patent-classification sequence="1">
                        <classification-scheme office="" scheme="CPC"/>
                        <section>C</section>
                        <class>07</class>
                        <subclass>K</subclass>
                        <main-group>16</main-group>
                        <subgroup>22</subgroup>
                        <classification-value>I</classification-value>
                    </patent-classification>
                    <patent-classification sequence="2">
                        <classification-scheme office="" scheme="CPC"/>
                        <section>A</section>
                        <class>61</class>
                        <subclass>K</subclass>
                        <main-group>2039</main-group>
                        <subgroup>505</subgroup>
                        <classification-value>A</classification-value>
                    </patent-classification>
                    <patent-classification sequence="7">
                        <classification-scheme office="" scheme="CPC"/>
                        <section>C</section>
                        <class>07</class>
                        <subclass>K</subclass>
                        <main-group>2317</main-group>
                        <subgroup>92</subgroup>
                        <classification-value>A</classification-value>
                    </patent-classification>
                    <patent-classification sequence="1">
                        <classification-scheme office="US" scheme="UC"/>
                        <classification-symbol>530/387.9</classification-symbol>
                    </patent-classification>
                </patent-classifications>
            </bibliographic-data>
        </exchange-document>
    </exchange-documents>
</ops:world-patent-data>

PepperoniPizza · Answer 1 · 2013-12-13T18:20:42.520

2

Install BeautifulSoup if you don't have it:

$ easy_install BeautifulSoup4

Try this:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

xml = open('example.xml', 'rb').read()
bs = BeautifulSoup(xml)

# find patent-classification
patents = bs.findAll('patent-classification')
# filter the ones with CPC
for pa in patents:
    if pa.find('classification-scheme', {'scheme': 'CPC'} ):
        print pa.getText()

edited Dec 13 '13 at 18:20

answered Dec 13 '13 at 18:12

PepperoniPizza

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Thanks but where is the `xml` being used as variable? – user1140126 Dec 13 '13 at 18:16
well xml variable is where you load your xml. Actually to try the exact code, create a file names `example.xml` and write in it what you posted on the question and I edited my answer I was missing one line. Thanks – PepperoniPizza Dec 13 '13 at 18:20
@user1140126 check the answer again I updated it. I was missing one line – PepperoniPizza Dec 13 '13 at 18:26

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 13 '13 at 18:22

You can use python xml standard module:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

root = ET.parse('a.xml').getroot()

for node in root.iterfind(".//{http://www.epo.org/exchange}classification-scheme[@scheme='CPC']/.."):
    data = []
    for d in node.getchildren():
        if d.text:
            data.append(d.text)
    print ' '.join(data)

How to parse xml string having deep structures using python

2 Answers2