How-to delete an element from a xml tree in Python

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Following are the steps to delete an element from a xml tree proprly when parsing with python,

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47041688/remove-element-from-xml-with-elementtree

Example XML tree


<foo>
   <bar>
      <level>
         <test name="1">
            <stuff>
               hello
            </stuff>
         </test>
         <test name="2">
            <stuff>
               hello
            </stuff>
         </test>
      </level>   
   </bar>
</foo>

Python code to delete stuff


import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

tree = ET.parse('myfile.xml')
root = tree.getroot()

for test in root.iter('test'):
    for stuff in test.findall('stuff'):
       test.remove(stuff)

print ET.tostring(root)

You need to have pointer to parent tag in order to remove child tag.

Xml on Raveen Kumar

How-to delete an element from a xml tree in Python