Python & XML

Python DOM Offerings

Python has several different ways for working with the DOM. The one you choose should best fit your needs. minidom is smaller and faster than a fully compliant DOM, but suits the needs of most users. pulldom provides a way to build only the portion of the DOM needed for a particular application, allowing the DOM to be more easily used when working with large documents or tight memory constraints. 4DOM is a full-fledged DOM Level 2 implementation. While these are the dominant implementations of the DOM for Python, and the only implementations described here, realize that there are additional implementations available that may be more tailored to your requirements.

Streamlining with Minidom

minidom , part of the xml.dom package included with both the Python standard library and PyXML, is a lightweight DOM implementation. Its goal is to provide a simple implementation and smaller memory footprint than a full DOM implementation. The methods for creating the DOM are simple as well. minidom also supports functions for working with string-length XML chunks and methods for extracting them.

Overall, minidom may be best for loading simple (not necessarily small) configuration files for your applications, dealing with form submissions from web pages, handling user authorization, and using it anywhere a “little” bit of XML is needed. You can reduce memory and time overhead by using minidom. These are two elements of significant importance in web application development. ...