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class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#where-to-start">Where to start?</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#lxml-etree">lxml.etree</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#python-modules">Python modules</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#lxml-objectify">lxml.objectify</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#lxml-html">lxml.html</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="changes 4 2 1-menu"><li class="menu title"><a href="changes-4.2.1.html">Release Changelog</a></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="credits-menu"><li class="menu title"><a href="credits.html">Credits</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="credits.html#main-contributors">Main contributors</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="credits.html#special-thanks-goes-to">Special thanks goes to:</a></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><a href="http://lxml.de/sitemap.html">Sitemap</a></li></ul></div></div><h1 class="title">XPath and XSLT with lxml</h1>
<p>lxml supports XPath 1.0, XSLT 1.0 and the EXSLT extensions through
libxml2 and libxslt in a standards compliant way.</p>
<div class="contents topic" id="contents">
<p class="topic-title first">Contents</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#xpath" id="id1">XPath</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#the-xpath-method" id="id2">The <tt class="docutils literal">xpath()</tt> method</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#namespaces-and-prefixes" id="id3">Namespaces and prefixes</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#xpath-return-values" id="id4">XPath return values</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#generating-xpath-expressions" id="id5">Generating XPath expressions</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#the-xpath-class" id="id6">The <tt class="docutils literal">XPath</tt> class</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#regular-expressions-in-xpath" id="id7">Regular expressions in XPath</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#the-xpathevaluator-classes" id="id8">The <tt class="docutils literal">XPathEvaluator</tt> classes</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#etxpath" id="id9"><tt class="docutils literal">ETXPath</tt></a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#error-handling" id="id10">Error handling</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#xslt" id="id11">XSLT</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#xslt-result-objects" id="id12">XSLT result objects</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#stylesheet-parameters" id="id13">Stylesheet parameters</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#errors-and-messages" id="id14">Errors and messages</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#the-xslt-tree-method" id="id15">The <tt class="docutils literal">xslt()</tt> tree method</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#dealing-with-stylesheet-complexity" id="id16">Dealing with stylesheet complexity</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#profiling" id="id17">Profiling</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>The usual setup procedure:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">lxml</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">etree</span>
</pre></div>
<div class="section" id="xpath">
<h1>XPath</h1>
<p>lxml.etree supports the simple path syntax of the <a class="reference external" href="http://effbot.org/zone/element.htm#searching-for-subelements">find, findall and
findtext</a> methods on ElementTree and Element, as known from the original
ElementTree library (<a class="reference external" href="http://effbot.org/zone/element-xpath.htm">ElementPath</a>). As an lxml specific extension, these
classes also provide an <tt class="docutils literal">xpath()</tt> method that supports expressions in the
complete XPath syntax, as well as <a class="reference external" href="extensions.html#xpath-extension-functions">custom extension functions</a>.</p>
<p>There are also specialized XPath evaluator classes that are more efficient for
frequent evaluation: <tt class="docutils literal">XPath</tt> and <tt class="docutils literal">XPathEvaluator</tt>. See the <a class="reference external" href="performance.html#xpath">performance
comparison</a> to learn when to use which. Their semantics when used on
Elements and ElementTrees are the same as for the <tt class="docutils literal">xpath()</tt> method described
here.</p>
<div class="section" id="the-xpath-method">
<h2>The <tt class="docutils literal">xpath()</tt> method</h2>
<p>For ElementTree, the xpath method performs a global XPath query against the
document (if absolute) or against the root node (if relative):</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">StringIO</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'<foo><bar></bar></foo>'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">tree</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">parse</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">f</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'/foo/bar'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">r</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">1</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span>
<span class="go">'bar'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'bar'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span>
<span class="go">'bar'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>When <tt class="docutils literal">xpath()</tt> is used on an Element, the XPath expression is evaluated
against the element (if relative) or against the root tree (if absolute):</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">getroot</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'bar'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span>
<span class="go">'bar'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">bar</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">bar</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'/foo/bar'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span>
<span class="go">'bar'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">tree</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">bar</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">getroottree</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'/foo/bar'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span>
<span class="go">'bar'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The <tt class="docutils literal">xpath()</tt> method has support for XPath variables:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">expr</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"//*[local-name() = $name]"</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">expr</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">name</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"foo"</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">foo</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">expr</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">name</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"bar"</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">bar</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"$text"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">text</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"Hello World!"</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="go">Hello World!</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="namespaces-and-prefixes">
<h2>Namespaces and prefixes</h2>
<p>If your XPath expression uses namespace prefixes, you must define them
in a prefix mapping. To this end, pass a dictionary to the
<tt class="docutils literal">namespaces</tt> keyword argument that maps the namespace prefixes used
in the XPath expression to namespace URIs:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">StringIO</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'''</span><span class="se">\</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"><a:foo xmlns:a="http://codespeak.net/ns/test1"</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> xmlns:b="http://codespeak.net/ns/test2"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <b:bar>Text</b:bar></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"></a:foo></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1">'''</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">doc</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">parse</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">f</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">doc</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'/x:foo/b:bar'</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="n">namespaces</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">'x'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="s1">'http://codespeak.net/ns/test1'</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="s1">'b'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="s1">'http://codespeak.net/ns/test2'</span><span class="p">})</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">r</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">1</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span>
<span class="go">'{http://codespeak.net/ns/test2}bar'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">r</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span>
<span class="go">'Text'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The prefixes you choose here are not linked to the prefixes used
inside the XML document. The document may define whatever prefixes it
likes, including the empty prefix, without breaking the above code.</p>
<p>Note that XPath does not have a notion of a default namespace. The
empty prefix is therefore undefined for XPath and cannot be used in
namespace prefix mappings.</p>
<p>There is also an optional <tt class="docutils literal">extensions</tt> argument which is used to
define <a class="reference external" href="extensions.html#xpath-extension-functions">custom extension functions</a> in Python that are local to this
evaluation. The namespace prefixes that they use in the XPath
expression must also be defined in the namespace prefix mapping.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="xpath-return-values">
<h2>XPath return values</h2>
<p>The return value types of XPath evaluations vary, depending on the
XPath expression used:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>True or False, when the XPath expression has a boolean result</li>
<li>a float, when the XPath expression has a numeric result (integer or float)</li>
<li>a 'smart' string (as described below), when the XPath expression has
a string result.</li>
<li>a list of items, when the XPath expression has a list as result.
The items may include Elements (also comments and processing
instructions), strings and tuples. Text nodes and attributes in the
result are returned as 'smart' string values. Namespace
declarations are returned as tuples of strings: <tt class="docutils literal">(prefix, URI)</tt>.</li>
</ul>
<p>XPath string results are 'smart' in that they provide a
<tt class="docutils literal">getparent()</tt> method that knows their origin:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>for attribute values, <tt class="docutils literal">result.getparent()</tt> returns the Element
that carries them. An example is <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">//foo/@attribute</span></tt>, where the
parent would be a <tt class="docutils literal">foo</tt> Element.</li>
<li>for the <tt class="docutils literal">text()</tt> function (as in <tt class="docutils literal">//text()</tt>), it returns the
Element that contains the text or tail that was returned.</li>
</ul>
<p>You can distinguish between different text origins with the boolean
properties <tt class="docutils literal">is_text</tt>, <tt class="docutils literal">is_tail</tt> and <tt class="docutils literal">is_attribute</tt>.</p>
<p>Note that <tt class="docutils literal">getparent()</tt> may not always return an Element. For
example, the XPath functions <tt class="docutils literal">string()</tt> and <tt class="docutils literal">concat()</tt> will
construct strings that do not have an origin. For them,
<tt class="docutils literal">getparent()</tt> will return None.</p>
<p>There are certain cases where the smart string behaviour is
undesirable. For example, it means that the tree will be kept alive
by the string, which may have a considerable memory impact in the case
that the string value is the only thing in the tree that is actually
of interest. For these cases, you can deactivate the parental
relationship using the keyword argument <tt class="docutils literal">smart_strings</tt>.</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"<root><a>TEXT</a></root>"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find_text</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//text()"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">text</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">find_text</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">TEXT</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">getparent</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">TEXT</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find_text</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//text()"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">smart_strings</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="bp">False</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">text</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">find_text</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">TEXT</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">hasattr</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'getparent'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">False</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="generating-xpath-expressions">
<h2>Generating XPath expressions</h2>
<p>ElementTree objects have a method <tt class="docutils literal">getpath(element)</tt>, which returns a
structural, absolute XPath expression to find that element:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">a</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">Element</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"a"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">b</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">SubElement</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">"b"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">c</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">SubElement</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">"c"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">d1</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">SubElement</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">c</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">"d"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">d2</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">SubElement</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">c</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">"d"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">tree</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">ElementTree</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">c</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">getpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">d2</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="go">/c/d[2]</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">tree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">getpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">d2</span><span class="p">))</span> <span class="o">==</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="n">d2</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="go">True</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="the-xpath-class">
<h2>The <tt class="docutils literal">XPath</tt> class</h2>
<p>The <tt class="docutils literal">XPath</tt> class compiles an XPath expression into a callable function:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"<root><a><b/></a><b/></root>"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//b"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">b</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The compilation takes as much time as in the <tt class="docutils literal">xpath()</tt> method, but it is
done only once per class instantiation. This makes it especially efficient
for repeated evaluation of the same XPath expression.</p>
<p>Just like the <tt class="docutils literal">xpath()</tt> method, the <tt class="docutils literal">XPath</tt> class supports XPath
variables:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">count_elements</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"count(//*[local-name() = $name])"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">count_elements</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">name</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"a"</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="go">1.0</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">count_elements</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">name</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"b"</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="go">2.0</span>
</pre></div>
<p>This supports very efficient evaluation of modified versions of an XPath
expression, as compilation is still only required once.</p>
<p>Prefix-to-namespace mappings can be passed as second parameter:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"<root xmlns='NS'><a><b/></a><b/></root>"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//n:b"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">namespaces</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">'n'</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="s1">'NS'</span><span class="p">})</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">{NS}b</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="regular-expressions-in-xpath">
<h2>Regular expressions in XPath</h2>
<p>By default, <tt class="docutils literal">XPath</tt> supports regular expressions in the <a class="reference external" href="http://www.exslt.org/">EXSLT</a> namespace:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">regexpNS</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"http://exslt.org/regular-expressions"</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//*[re:test(., '^abc$', 'i')]"</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="n">namespaces</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">'re'</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="n">regexpNS</span><span class="p">})</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"<root><a>aB</a><b>aBc</b></root>"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">aBc</span>
</pre></div>
<p>You can disable this with the boolean keyword argument <tt class="docutils literal">regexp</tt> which
defaults to True.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="the-xpathevaluator-classes">
<h2>The <tt class="docutils literal">XPathEvaluator</tt> classes</h2>
<p>lxml.etree provides two other efficient XPath evaluators that work on
ElementTrees or Elements respectively: <tt class="docutils literal">XPathDocumentEvaluator</tt> and
<tt class="docutils literal">XPathElementEvaluator</tt>. They are automatically selected if you use the
XPathEvaluator helper for instantiation:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"<root><a><b/></a><b/></root>"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">xpatheval</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPathEvaluator</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">isinstance</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">xpatheval</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPathElementEvaluator</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="go">True</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">xpatheval</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//b"</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">b</span>
</pre></div>
<p>This class provides efficient support for evaluating different XPath
expressions on the same Element or ElementTree.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="etxpath">
<h2><tt class="docutils literal">ETXPath</tt></h2>
<p>ElementTree supports a language named <a class="reference external" href="http://effbot.org/zone/element-xpath.htm">ElementPath</a> in its <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">find*()</span></tt> methods.
One of the main differences between XPath and ElementPath is that the XPath
language requires an indirection through prefixes for namespace support,
whereas ElementTree uses the Clark notation (<tt class="docutils literal">{ns}name</tt>) to avoid prefixes
completely. The other major difference regards the capabilities of both path
languages. Where XPath supports various sophisticated ways of restricting the
result set through functions and boolean expressions, ElementPath only
supports pure path traversal without nesting or further conditions. So, while
the ElementPath syntax is self-contained and therefore easier to write and
handle, XPath is much more powerful and expressive.</p>
<p>lxml.etree bridges this gap through the class <tt class="docutils literal">ETXPath</tt>, which accepts XPath
expressions with namespaces in Clark notation. It is identical to the
<tt class="docutils literal">XPath</tt> class, except for the namespace notation. Normally, you would
write:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"<root xmlns='ns'><a><b/></a><b/></root>"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//p:b"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">namespaces</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">'p'</span> <span class="p">:</span> <span class="s1">'ns'</span><span class="p">})</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">{ns}b</span>
</pre></div>
<p><tt class="docutils literal">ETXPath</tt> allows you to change this to:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">ETXPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//{ns}b"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">)[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">tag</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">{ns}b</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="error-handling">
<h2>Error handling</h2>
<p>lxml.etree raises exceptions when errors occur while parsing or evaluating an
XPath expression:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"</span><span class="se">\\</span><span class="s2">"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gt">Traceback (most recent call last):</span>
<span class="c">...</span>
<span class="gr">lxml.etree.XPathSyntaxError</span>: <span class="n">Invalid expression</span>
</pre></div>
<p>lxml will also try to give you a hint what went wrong, so if you pass a more
complex expression, you may get a somewhat more specific error:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//*[1.1.1]"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gt">Traceback (most recent call last):</span>
<span class="c">...</span>
<span class="gr">lxml.etree.XPathSyntaxError</span>: <span class="n">Invalid predicate</span>
</pre></div>
<p>During evaluation, lxml will emit an XPathEvalError on errors:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//ns:a"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gt">Traceback (most recent call last):</span>
<span class="c">...</span>
<span class="gr">lxml.etree.XPathEvalError</span>: <span class="n">Undefined namespace prefix</span>
</pre></div>
<p>This works for the <tt class="docutils literal">XPath</tt> class, however, the other evaluators (including
the <tt class="docutils literal">xpath()</tt> method) are one-shot operations that do parsing and evaluation
in one step. They therefore raise evaluation exceptions in all cases:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">Element</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"test"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//*[1.1.1]"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gt">Traceback (most recent call last):</span>
<span class="c">...</span>
<span class="gr">lxml.etree.XPathEvalError</span>: <span class="n">Invalid predicate</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"//ns:a"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gt">Traceback (most recent call last):</span>
<span class="c">...</span>
<span class="gr">lxml.etree.XPathEvalError</span>: <span class="n">Undefined namespace prefix</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">find</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">root</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xpath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"</span><span class="se">\\</span><span class="s2">"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gt">Traceback (most recent call last):</span>
<span class="c">...</span>
<span class="gr">lxml.etree.XPathEvalError</span>: <span class="n">Invalid expression</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Note that lxml versions before 1.3 always raised an <tt class="docutils literal">XPathSyntaxError</tt> for
all errors, including evaluation errors. The best way to support older
versions is to except on the superclass <tt class="docutils literal">XPathError</tt>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="xslt">
<h1>XSLT</h1>
<p>lxml.etree introduces a new class, lxml.etree.XSLT. The class can be
given an ElementTree or Element object to construct an XSLT
transformer:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">xslt_root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'''</span><span class="se">\</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"><xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:template match="/"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <foo><xsl:value-of select="/a/b/text()" /></foo></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> </xsl:template></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"></xsl:stylesheet>'''</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">transform</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XSLT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">xslt_root</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
<p>You can then run the transformation on an ElementTree document by simply
calling it, and this results in another ElementTree object:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">StringIO</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'<a><b>Text</b></a>'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">doc</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">parse</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">f</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result_tree</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
<p>By default, XSLT supports all extension functions from libxslt and
libexslt as well as Python regular expressions through the <a class="reference external" href="http://www.exslt.org/regexp/">EXSLT
regexp functions</a>. Also see the documentation on <a class="reference external" href="extensions.html#xpath-extension-functions">custom extension
functions</a>, <a class="reference external" href="extensions.html#xslt-extension-elements">XSLT extension elements</a> and <a class="reference external" href="resolvers.html">document resolvers</a>.
There is a separate section on <a class="reference external" href="resolvers.html#i-o-access-control-in-xslt">controlling access</a> to external
documents and resources.</p>
<div class="section" id="xslt-result-objects">
<h2>XSLT result objects</h2>
<p>The result of an XSL transformation can be accessed like a normal ElementTree
document:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'<a><b>Text</b></a>'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">root</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">getroot</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span>
<span class="go">'Text'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>but, as opposed to normal ElementTree objects, can also be turned into an (XML
or text) string by applying the str() function:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<foo>Text</foo>\n'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The result is always a plain string, encoded as requested by the
<tt class="docutils literal">xsl:output</tt> element in the stylesheet. If you want a Python unicode string
instead, you should set this encoding to <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">UTF-8</span></tt> (unless the <cite>ASCII</cite> default
is sufficient). This allows you to call the builtin <tt class="docutils literal">unicode()</tt> function on
the result:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">unicode</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">u'<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<foo>Text</foo>\n'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>You can use other encodings at the cost of multiple recoding. Encodings that
are not supported by Python will result in an error:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">xslt_tree</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'''</span><span class="se">\</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"><xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:output encoding="UCS4"/></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:template match="/"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <foo><xsl:value-of select="/a/b/text()" /></foo></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> </xsl:template></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"></xsl:stylesheet>'''</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">transform</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XSLT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">xslt_tree</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">unicode</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gt">Traceback (most recent call last):</span>
<span class="c">...</span>
<span class="gr">LookupError</span>: <span class="n">unknown encoding: UCS4</span>
</pre></div>
<p>While it is possible to use the <tt class="docutils literal">.write()</tt> method (known from <tt class="docutils literal">ElementTree</tt>
objects) to serialise the XSLT result into a file, it is better to use the
<tt class="docutils literal">.write_output()</tt> method. The latter knows about the <tt class="docutils literal"><xsl:output></tt> tag
and writes the expected data into the output file.</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">xslt_root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'''</span><span class="se">\</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"><xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:output method="text" encoding="utf8" /></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:template match="/"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <foo><xsl:value-of select="/a/b/text()" /></foo></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> </xsl:template></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"></xsl:stylesheet>'''</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">transform</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XSLT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">xslt_root</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">write_output</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"output.txt.gz"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">compression</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">9</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># doctest: +SKIP</span>
</pre></div>
<blockquote>
<pre class="doctest-block">
>>> from io import BytesIO
>>> out = BytesIO()
>>> result.write_output(out)
>>> data = out.getvalue()
>>> b'Text' in data
True
</pre>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="section" id="stylesheet-parameters">
<h2>Stylesheet parameters</h2>
<p>It is possible to pass parameters, in the form of XPath expressions, to the
XSLT template:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">xslt_tree</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'''</span><span class="se">\</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"><xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:param name="a" /></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:template match="/"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <foo><xsl:value-of select="$a" /></foo></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> </xsl:template></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"></xsl:stylesheet>'''</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">transform</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XSLT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">xslt_tree</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">doc_root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'<a><b>Text</b></a>'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The parameters are passed as keyword parameters to the transform call.
First, let's try passing in a simple integer expression:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc_root</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">"5"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<foo>5</foo>\n'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>You can use any valid XPath expression as parameter value:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc_root</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">"/a/b/text()"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<foo>Text</foo>\n'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>It's also possible to pass an XPath object as a parameter:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc_root</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XPath</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"/a/b/text()"</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<foo>Text</foo>\n'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Passing a string expression looks like this:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc_root</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">"'A'"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<foo>A</foo>\n'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>To pass a string that (potentially) contains quotes, you can use the
<tt class="docutils literal">.strparam()</tt> class method. Note that it does not escape the
string. Instead, it returns an opaque object that keeps the string
value.</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">plain_string_value</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XSLT</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">strparam</span><span class="p">(</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="sd">""" It's "Monty Python" """</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc_root</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">plain_string_value</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<foo> It\'s "Monty Python" </foo>\n'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>If you need to pass parameters that are not legal Python identifiers,
pass them inside of a dictionary:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">transform</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XSLT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'''</span><span class="se">\</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"><xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:param name="non-python-identifier" /></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:template match="/"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <foo><xsl:value-of select="$non-python-identifier" /></foo></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> </xsl:template></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"></xsl:stylesheet>'''</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc_root</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="o">**</span><span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">'non-python-identifier'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="s1">'5'</span><span class="p">})</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<foo>5</foo>\n'</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="errors-and-messages">
<h2>Errors and messages</h2>
<p>Like most of the processing oriented objects in lxml.etree, <tt class="docutils literal">XSLT</tt>
provides an error log that lists messages and error output from the
last run. See the <a class="reference external" href="parsing.html#error-log">parser documentation</a> for a description of the
error log.</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">xslt_root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'''</span><span class="se">\</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"><xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:template match="/"></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:message terminate="no">STARTING</xsl:message></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <foo><xsl:value-of select="/a/b/text()" /></foo></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> <xsl:message terminate="no">DONE</xsl:message></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"> </xsl:template></span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="s1"></xsl:stylesheet>'''</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">transform</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XSLT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">xslt_root</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">doc_root</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XML</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'<a><b>Text</b></a>'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc_root</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<foo>Text</foo>\n'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">transform</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">error_log</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go"><string>:0:0:ERROR:XSLT:ERR_OK: STARTING</span>
<span class="go"><string>:0:0:ERROR:XSLT:ERR_OK: DONE</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">entry</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">error_log</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'message from line </span><span class="si">%s</span><span class="s1">, col </span><span class="si">%s</span><span class="s1">: </span><span class="si">%s</span><span class="s1">'</span> <span class="o">%</span> <span class="p">(</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="n">entry</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">line</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">entry</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">column</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">entry</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">message</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'domain: </span><span class="si">%s</span><span class="s1"> (</span><span class="si">%d</span><span class="s1">)'</span> <span class="o">%</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">entry</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">domain_name</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">entry</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">domain</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'type: </span><span class="si">%s</span><span class="s1"> (</span><span class="si">%d</span><span class="s1">)'</span> <span class="o">%</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">entry</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">type_name</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">entry</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">type</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'level: </span><span class="si">%s</span><span class="s1"> (</span><span class="si">%d</span><span class="s1">)'</span> <span class="o">%</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">entry</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">level_name</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">entry</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">level</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="k">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'filename: </span><span class="si">%s</span><span class="s1">'</span> <span class="o">%</span> <span class="n">entry</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">filename</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">message from line 0, col 0: STARTING</span>
<span class="go">domain: XSLT (22)</span>
<span class="go">type: ERR_OK (0)</span>
<span class="go">level: ERROR (2)</span>
<span class="go">filename: <string></span>
<span class="go">message from line 0, col 0: DONE</span>
<span class="go">domain: XSLT (22)</span>
<span class="go">type: ERR_OK (0)</span>
<span class="go">level: ERROR (2)</span>
<span class="go">filename: <string></span>
</pre></div>
<p>Note that there is no way in XSLT to distinguish between user
messages, warnings and error messages that occurred during the
run. <tt class="docutils literal">libxslt</tt> simply does not provide this information. You can
partly work around this limitation by making your own messages
uniquely identifiable, e.g. with a common text prefix.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="the-xslt-tree-method">
<h2>The <tt class="docutils literal">xslt()</tt> tree method</h2>
<p>There's also a convenience method on ElementTree objects for doing XSL
transformations. This is less efficient if you want to apply the same XSL
transformation to multiple documents, but is shorter to write for one-shot
operations, as you do not have to instantiate a stylesheet yourself:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">doc</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xslt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">xslt_tree</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">"'A'"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<foo>A</foo>\n'</span>
</pre></div>
<p>This is a shortcut for the following code:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">transform</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">etree</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">XSLT</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">xslt_tree</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">"'A'"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'<?xml version="1.0"?>\n<foo>A</foo>\n'</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="dealing-with-stylesheet-complexity">
<h2>Dealing with stylesheet complexity</h2>
<p>Some applications require a larger set of rather diverse stylesheets.
lxml.etree allows you to deal with this in a number of ways. Here are
some ideas to try.</p>
<p>The most simple way to reduce the diversity is by using XSLT
parameters that you pass at call time to configure the stylesheets.
The <tt class="docutils literal">partial()</tt> function in the <tt class="docutils literal">functools</tt> module of Python 2.5
may come in handy here. It allows you to bind a set of keyword
arguments (i.e. stylesheet parameters) to a reference of a callable
stylesheet. The same works for instances of the <tt class="docutils literal">XPath()</tt>
evaluator, obviously.</p>
<p>You may also consider creating stylesheets programmatically. Just
create an XSL tree, e.g. from a parsed template, and then add or
replace parts as you see fit. Passing an XSL tree into the <tt class="docutils literal">XSLT()</tt>
constructor multiple times will create independent stylesheets, so
later modifications of the tree will not be reflected in the already
created stylesheets. This makes stylesheet generation very straight
forward.</p>
<p>A third thing to remember is the support for <a class="reference external" href="extensions.html#xpath-extension-functions">custom extension
functions</a> and <a class="reference external" href="extensions.html#xslt-extension-elements">XSLT extension elements</a>. Some things are much
easier to express in XSLT than in Python, while for others it is the
complete opposite. Finding the right mixture of Python code and XSL
code can help a great deal in keeping applications well designed and
maintainable.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="profiling">
<h2>Profiling</h2>
<p>If you want to know how your stylesheet performed, pass the <tt class="docutils literal">profile_run</tt>
keyword to the transform:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">transform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">doc</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">"/a/b/text()"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">profile_run</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="bp">True</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">profile</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">result</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xslt_profile</span>
</pre></div>
<p>The value of the <tt class="docutils literal">xslt_profile</tt> property is an ElementTree with profiling
data about each template, similar to the following:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="nt"><profile></span>
<span class="nt"><template</span> <span class="na">rank=</span><span class="s">"1"</span> <span class="na">match=</span><span class="s">"/"</span> <span class="na">name=</span><span class="s">""</span> <span class="na">mode=</span><span class="s">""</span> <span class="na">calls=</span><span class="s">"1"</span> <span class="na">time=</span><span class="s">"1"</span> <span class="na">average=</span><span class="s">"1"</span><span class="nt">/></span>
<span class="nt"></profile></span>
</pre></div>
<p>Note that this is a read-only document. You must not move any of its elements
to other documents. Please deep-copy the document if you need to modify it.
If you want to free it from memory, just do:</p>
<div class="syntax"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">del</span> <span class="n">result</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xslt_profile</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
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