How to create XML file using Python?

Question

I would like to create an XML file. I tried it but the format looks bad, it only shows in one line.

Here is it:

import xml.etree.cElementTree as ET
root = ET.Element("data")
doc = ET.SubElement(root, "status", date="20210123")

ET.SubElement(doc, "name", name="john").text = "some value1"
ET.SubElement(doc, "class", name="abc").text = "some vlaue2"

tree = ET.ElementTree(root)
tree.write("FILE.xml")

The output is:

<data><status date="20210123"><name name="john">some value1</name><class name="abc">some vlaue2</class></status></data>

But my expectation output is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<data>
     <status>
          <name name="john">some value1</name>
          <class name="abc">some vlaue2</class>
     </status>
</data>

Anyone can give me an idea, please. I really appreciated it. Thank you

why it is important? who needs to read this file? see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28813876/how-do-i-get-pythons-elementtree-to-pretty-print-to-an-xml-file — balderman, Mar 16 '21 at 10:01
In Python 3.9, you can pretty-print with ElementTree: https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html#xml.etree.ElementTree.indent — mzjn, Mar 17 '21 at 14:14

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 17 '21 at 13:58

You need to

Use ET.tostring() to get your xml as a string
Use xml.dom.minidom to get a DOM object from the string
Use toprettyxml() of DOM object to get the xml as formatted string
Add encoding information to the xml declaration part by simply splitting and concating the formatted string
Write the string to a file

Code:

import xml.etree.cElementTree as ET
import xml.dom.minidom

m_encoding = 'UTF-8'

root = ET.Element("data")
doc = ET.SubElement(root, "status", date="20210123")
ET.SubElement(doc, "name", name="john").text = "some value1"
ET.SubElement(doc, "class", name="abc").text = "some vlaue2"

dom = xml.dom.minidom.parseString(ET.tostring(root))
xml_string = dom.toprettyxml()
part1, part2 = xml_string.split('?>')

with open("FILE.xml", 'w') as xfile:
    xfile.write(part1 + 'encoding=\"{}\"?>\n'.format(m_encoding) + part2)
    xfile.close()

Output file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<data>
    <status date="20210123">
        <name name="john">some value1</name>
        <class name="abc">some vlaue2</class>
    </status>
</data>

Please check this post if you don't mind. Thanks in advance :) https://stackoverflow.com/q/66671021/11076819 — Cheries, Mar 18 '21 at 02:29

How to create XML file using Python?

1 Answers1