Find and remove sub-element in XML file

Question

I’m new to Python so here is my problem:

XML:

<Configuration>
   <ConfiguredPaths>
       <ConfiguredPath>
           <LocalPath>C:\Temp</LocalPath>
           <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Temp</EffectivePath>
       </ConfiguredPath>
       <ConfiguredPath>
           <LocalPath>C:\Files</LocalPath>
           <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Files</EffectivePath>
       </ConfiguredPath>
       <ConfiguredPath>
           <LocalPath>C:\DOCS</LocalPath>
           <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\DOCS</EffectivePath>
       </ConfiguredPath>
   </ConfiguredPaths>
</Configuration>

What I need to be able to do is locate the element "EffectivePath" if it equals a certain value then delete the whole section it belongs to. Since is a child of "ConfiguredPath" (the section that needs to be deleted related to onlt that particular effective path)

Here is an example result if EffectivePath = "\SERVERNAME\C$\DOCS"

=> Result XML file should be as folllows:

<Configuration>
   <ConfiguredPaths>
       <ConfiguredPath>
           <LocalPath>C:\Temp</LocalPath>
           <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Temp</EffectivePath>
       </ConfiguredPath>
       <ConfiguredPath>
           <LocalPath>C:\Files</LocalPath>
           <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Files</EffectivePath>
       </ConfiguredPath>
   </ConfiguredPaths>
</Configuration>

Here is my script; however it removes all the ConfiguredPaths (and hence its children) rather that just the required one:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
tree = ET.parse('Data.xml')
root = tree.getroot()

for child in root:
    if child.tag == "ConfiguredPaths":
        for elem in child.iter():
            if elem.tag == "ConfiguredPath":
                for child_elem in child.iter():
                    if child_elem.tag == "EffectivePath" and child_elem.text == r"\\SERVERNAME\C$\DOCS":
                        print(f"Required item is:", child_elem.tag, child_elem.text)
                        root.remove(child)

tree.write('output.xml') 

Answer 1

One more example using lxml instead of ElementTree (because ElementTree has limited support for xpath and also lxml has the convenient .getparent() method).

from lxml import etree

to_remove = r"\\SERVERNAME\C$\DOCS"

tree = etree.parse("Data.xml")

# The context for tree is already /Configuration, so using a relative xpath.
for elem in tree.xpath(f"./ConfiguredPaths/ConfiguredPath[EffectivePath='{to_remove}']"):
    elem.getparent().remove(elem)

tree.write("output.xml")

Answer 2

Please try the following solution based on XSLT.

It is using a so called Identity Transform pattern.

Input XML

<Configuration>
    <ConfiguredPaths>
        <ConfiguredPath>
            <LocalPath>C:\Temp</LocalPath>
            <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Temp</EffectivePath>
        </ConfiguredPath>
        <ConfiguredPath>
            <LocalPath>C:\Files</LocalPath>
            <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Files</EffectivePath>
        </ConfiguredPath>
        <ConfiguredPath>
            <LocalPath>C:\DOCS</LocalPath>
            <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\DOCS</EffectivePath>
        </ConfiguredPath>
    </ConfiguredPaths>
</Configuration>

XSLT

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes"
               encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
   <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

   <!--Identity transform-->
   <xsl:template match="@*|node()">
      <xsl:copy>
         <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
      </xsl:copy>
   </xsl:template>

   <xsl:template match="ConfiguredPath[EffectivePath = '\\SERVERNAME\C$\DOCS']"/>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Python

import lxml.etree as lx

# PARSE XML AND XSLT
doc = lx.parse("Input.xml")
style = lx.parse("Style.xslt")
outfile = "Output.xml"

# CONFIGURE AND RUN TRANSFORMER
transformer = lx.XSLT(style)
result = transformer(doc)

# OUTPUT TO FILE
with open(outfile, "wb") as f:
    f.write(result)

Output XML

<Configuration>
  <ConfiguredPaths>
    <ConfiguredPath>
      <LocalPath>C:\Temp</LocalPath>
      <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Temp</EffectivePath>
    </ConfiguredPath>
    <ConfiguredPath>
      <LocalPath>C:\Files</LocalPath>
      <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Files</EffectivePath>
    </ConfiguredPath>
  </ConfiguredPaths>
</Configuration>

Answer 3

Just use core python xml lib

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

xml = '''<Configuration>
    <ConfiguredPaths>
        <ConfiguredPath>
            <LocalPath>C:\Temp</LocalPath>
            <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Temp</EffectivePath>
        </ConfiguredPath>
        <ConfiguredPath>
            <LocalPath>C:\Files</LocalPath>
            <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Files</EffectivePath>
        </ConfiguredPath>
        <ConfiguredPath>
            <LocalPath>C:\DOCS</LocalPath>
            <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\DOCS</EffectivePath>
        </ConfiguredPath>
    </ConfiguredPaths>
</Configuration>'''

root = ET.fromstring(xml)
cp_list = root.findall('.//ConfiguredPath')
for idx, cp in enumerate(cp_list):
    if cp.find('EffectivePath').text == '\\SERVERNAME\C$\DOCS':
        cp_list.remove(cp)

cp_root = root.find('.//ConfiguredPaths')
cp_root.clear()
for entry in cp_list:
    cp_root.append(entry)
ET.dump(root)

output

<Configuration>
    <ConfiguredPaths>
        <ConfiguredPath>
            <LocalPath>C:\Temp</LocalPath>
            <EffectivePath>\SERVERNAME\C$\Temp</EffectivePath>
        </ConfiguredPath>
        <ConfiguredPath>
            <LocalPath>C:\Files</LocalPath>
            <EffectivePath>\SERVERNAME\C$\Files</EffectivePath>
        </ConfiguredPath>
    </ConfiguredPaths>
</Configuration>

Answer 4

With xml.etree.ElementTree you can do:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
tree = ET.parse('config.xml')
root = tree.getroot()

for child in root.findall(".//ConfiguredPath"):
    if child.find('EffectivePath').text == r"\\SERVERNAME\C$\DOCS":
        parent = root.findall(".//ConfiguredPath/..")
        for part in parent:
            part.remove(child)

ET.indent(root, space="  ")
ET.ElementTree(root).write('out.xml', xml_declaration=True)           
ET.dump(root)

Output:

<Configuration>
  <ConfiguredPaths>
    <ConfiguredPath>
      <LocalPath>C:\Temp</LocalPath>
      <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Temp</EffectivePath>
    </ConfiguredPath>
    <ConfiguredPath>
      <LocalPath>C:\Files</LocalPath>
      <EffectivePath>\\SERVERNAME\C$\Files</EffectivePath>
    </ConfiguredPath>
  </ConfiguredPaths>
</Configuration>