unescaping xml text from ElementTree in python

Question

I'm trying to pull out an escape noded from an XML document. The raw text for the node looks like this:

<Notes>{&quot;Phase&quot;: 0, &quot;Flipper&quot;: 0, &quot;Guide&quot;: 0,     
&quot;Sample&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle8&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle5&quot;: 0,     
&quot;Triangle4&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle7&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle6&quot;: 0,     
&quot;Triangle1&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle3&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle2&quot;: 0}</Notes>

I'm pulling the text out as follows:

infile = ET.parse("C:/userfiles/EXP011/SESAME_60/SESAME_60_runinfo.xml")
r = infile.getroot()
XMLNS = "{http://example.com/foo/bar/runinfo_v4_3}"
x=r.find(".//"+XMLNS+"Notes")
print(x.text)

I expected to get:

{"Phase": 0, "Flipper": 0, "Guide&quot": 0,     
"Sample": 0, "Triangle8": 0, "Triangle5": 0,     
"Triangle4": 0, "Triangle7": 0, "Triangle6": 0,     
"Triangle1": 0, "Triangle3": 0, "Triangle2": 0}

but, instead, I got:

 {&quot;Phase&quot;: 0, &quot;Flipper&quot;: 0, &quot;Guide&quot;: 0,      
 &quot;Sample&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle8&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle5&quot;: 0,   
 &quot;Triangle4&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle7&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle6&quot;: 0, 
 &quot;Triangle1&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle3&quot;: 0, &quot;Triangle2&quot;: 0}

How do I get the unescaped string?

ElementTree does not unescape " because you normally don't need to escape " in XML. My answer was wrong for the same reasons. — Martijn Pieters
– Martijn Pieters, Commented Sep 10, 2012 at 17:31

unutbu · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-10 17:25:42Z

8

Use HTMLParser.HTMLParser():

In [8]: import HTMLParser    

In [11]: HTMLParser.HTMLParser().unescape('&quot;')
Out[11]: u'"'

saxutils handles <, > and &, but it does not handle ".

In [9]: import xml.sax.saxutils as saxutils

In [10]: saxutils.unescape('&quot;')
Out[10]: '&quot;'

answered Sep 10, 2012 at 17:25

unutbu

886k197 gold badges1.9k silver badges1.7k bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Martijn Pieters Over a year ago

Quite correct; " does not need to be quoted in XML, so the saxutils module doesn't deal with that (just like ElementTree).

rprospero Over a year ago

Thank you. That did it. Someday I'll have to talk with the server devs and find out why the server is escaping the quotes in the first place.

Montoya · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-20 14:25:55Z

5

Since python 3.4 you can use html.unescape.

>>> from html import unescape
>>> unescape('&quot;')
'"'

answered Feb 20, 2019 at 14:25

Montoya

3,0595 gold badges41 silver badges72 bronze badges

Comments

Deepstop · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-01 10:52:44Z

1

I have not managed to use escape for " in Python 2.7.5 for some reason but I found a workaround to get " instead of " in XML file using the replace function as below:

with open(xmlfilename, 'w') as f:
     f.write(myxml.toprettyxml().replace("&quot;",'"'))

edited Aug 1, 2019 at 10:52

Deepstop

3,8372 gold badges12 silver badges23 bronze badges

answered Aug 1, 2019 at 10:23

Danutz23

111 bronze badge

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

unescaping xml text from ElementTree in python

3 Answers 3

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related