Python & XML

Name

Convenience Functions

Synopsis

Three important convenience functions make performing a SAX-based parse trivial. These are sufficient for most applications, especially if the only handler that’s needed is the ContentHandler. These functions are provided in the xml.sax module and work with both the standard library and PyXML.

make_parser( [parser_list] )

Returns a SAX XMLReader object. Most of the examples in Chapter 3 use this function to create a reader. See also Section 3.7, in that chapter, for more information on using the underlying parser factory objects.

parse( source, content_handler[, error_handler] )

Creates a reader using make_parser, associates the provided content and error handlers, and parses an XML document. The document is identified by the source parameter, which may be a filename, URL, a file object open for reading, or an InputSource instance.

parseString( text, content_handler[, error_handler] )

Similar to parse, but the input document is the text given by text.