#@Stephen:
#"can't hardcode the element names, so I need to collect them
#at parse and use them somehow as the object names."
#I don't think thats possible. Instead you can do this.
#this will help you getting any object with a required name.
import BeautifulSoup
class Coll(object):
"""A class which can hold your Foo clas objects
and retrieve them easily when you want
abstracting the storage and retrieval logic
"""
def __init__(self):
self.foos={}
def add(self, fooobj):
self.foos[fooobj.name]=fooobj
def get(self, name):
return self.foos[name]
class Foo(object):
"""The required class
"""
def __init__(self, name, attr1=None, attr2=None):
self.name=name
self.attr1=attr1
self.attr2=attr2
s="""<main>
<object name="somename">
<attr name="attr1">value1</attr>
<attr name="attr2">value2</attr>
</object>
<object name="someothername">
<attr name="attr1">value3</attr>
<attr name="attr2">value4</attr>
</object>
</main>
"""
#
soup=BeautifulSoup.BeautifulSoup(s)
bars=Coll()
for each in soup.findAll('object'):
bar=Foo(each['name'])
attrs=each.findAll('attr')
for attr in attrs:
setattr(bar, attr['name'], attr.renderContents())
bars.add(bar)
#retrieve objects by name
print bars.get('somename').__dict__
print '\n\n', bars.get('someothername').__dict__
output
{'attr2': 'value2', 'name': u'somename', 'attr1': 'value1'}
{'attr2': 'value4', 'name': u'someothername', 'attr1': 'value3'}
