How To Comment Out XML <Tag> using ElementTree

Question

I would like to comment out a text like this:

<name>cranberry</name>

However, my script returns the output like this:

<!-- &lt;name&gt;cranberry&lt;/name&gt; -->

My Script:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
from xml.etree.ElementTree import Comment

tree = ET.parse(r"C:\sample.xml") 
root = tree.getroot() 
comment = ET.Comment("<name>cranberry</name>")
root.insert(0,comment)
tree.write(r"C:\sample1.xml")

Any advice would be appreciated.

I haven't worked on this. Looking at docs, I suggest you add the node first, get handle to the newly inserted node and run .Comment method on it, save the tree. — shahkalpesh
– shahkalpesh, Commented Jan 12, 2013 at 15:33
It could be Minidom..as long as I don't have to install external libraries.. — fairyberry
– fairyberry, Commented Jan 12, 2013 at 15:34
@MartijnPieters: You are right. what I mean is, get a handle to existing node and run .comment on it. I assume every node is a subtree, so to say. — shahkalpesh
– shahkalpesh, Commented Jan 12, 2013 at 15:35
A quick peek at the minidom source shows that it indeed won't escape comment contents. — Martijn Pieters
– Martijn Pieters, Commented Jan 12, 2013 at 15:35

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-12 15:56:07Z

4

The older ElementTree library included in Python 2.6 does indeed XML-escape data in comments unconditionally:

$ python2.6 -c "from xml.etree import ElementTree as ET; print ET.tostring(ET.Comment('<'))"
<!-- &lt; -->

You have a few options:

Upgrade to Python 2.7; it handles comment serialization correctly:

$python2.7 -c "from xml.etree import ElementTree as ET; print ET.tostring(ET.Comment('<'))"
<!--<-->

Install the external ElementTree library.

Use the Minidom (not recommended, the DOM API is overly verbose):

from xml.dom import minidom

doc = minidom.parse(r"C:\sample.xml")

comment = doc.createComment("<name>cranberry</name>")
doc.documentElement.appendChild(comment)

doc.writexml(r"C:\sample1.xml")

answered Jan 12, 2013 at 15:56

Martijn Pieters

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1 Comment

timday Over a year ago

This is a fine answer; have a +1.

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