Move an entire element in with lxml.etree

Question

Within lxml, is it possible, given an element, to move the entire thing elsewhere in the xml document without having to read all of it's children and recreate it? My best example would be changing parents. I've rummaged around the docs a bit but haven't had much luck. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

.append, .insert and other operations do that by default

>>> from lxml import etree
>>> tree = etree.XML('<a><b><c/></b><d><e><f/></e></d></a>')
>>> node_b = tree.xpath('/a/b')[0]
>>> node_d = tree.xpath('/a/d')[0]
>>> node_d.append(node_b)
>>> etree.tostring(tree) # complete 'b'-branch is now under 'd', after 'e'
'<a><d><e><f/></e><b><c/></b></d></a>'
>>> node_f = tree.xpath('/a/d/e/f')[0] # Nothing stops us from moving it again
>>> node_f.append(node_b) # Now 'b' and its child are under 'f'
>>> etree.tostring(tree)
'<a><d><e><f><b><c/></b></f></e></d></a>'

Be careful when moving nodes having a tail text. In lxml tail text belong to the node and moves around with it. (Also, when you delete a node, its tail text is also deleted)

>>> tree = etree.XML('<a><b><c/></b>TAIL<d><e><f/></e></d></a>')
>>> node_b = tree.xpath('/a/b')[0]
>>> node_d = tree.xpath('/a/d')[0]
>>> node_d.append(node_b)
>>> etree.tostring(tree)
'<a><d><e><f/></e><b><c/></b>TAIL</d></a>'

Sometimes it's a desired effect, but sometimes you will need something like that:

>>> tree = etree.XML('<a><b><c/></b>TAIL<d><e><f/></e></d></a>')
>>> node_b = tree.xpath('/a/b')[0]
>>> node_d = tree.xpath('/a/d')[0]
>>> node_a = tree.xpath('/a')[0]
>>> # Manually move text
>>> node_a.text = node_b.tail
>>> node_b.tail = None
>>> node_d.append(node_b)
>>> etree.tostring(tree)
>>> # Now TAIL text stays within its old place
'<a>TAIL<d><e><f/></e><b><c/></b></d></a>'

Answer 2

You could use .append(), .insert() methods to add a subelement to the existing element:

>>> from lxml import etree
>>> from_ = etree.fromstring("<from/>")
>>> to  = etree.fromstring("<to/>")
>>> to.append(from_)
>>> etree.tostring(to)
'<to><from/></to>'