I’m having trouble converting xpath expressions that I use in ReadyAPI for use in Python 3 with the lxml library. I’ve read the lxml documentation but I’m not getting the same results.
Here’s my XML:
<Envelope>
<Body>
<ReplyResponses>
<RepyResults>
<Reply>
<ContentsofReply>
<Content>
<IDofContent>ID of Content 1</IDofContent>
</Content>
</ContentsofReply>
<ID>ID of Reply 1</ID>
<Name>Name of Reply</Name>
</Reply>
</RepyResults>
</ReplyResponses>
</Body>
</Envelope>
I use the following xpath expressions in ReadyAPI:
//*:Reply[*:Name="Name of Reply"]/*:ID
the expected returned result is:
ID of Reply 1
and:
//*:Reply[*:Name="Name of Reply"]/*:ContentsofReply/*:Content/*:IDofContent
the expected returned result is:
ID of Content 1
How do I get the same results in Python 3 with the lxml library? Thanks in advance.
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Answer
The xpath expressions in your questions contain *:prefixes intended to be used with namespaces which aren’t in your sample xml.
To extract the same data from your sample xml with lxml, change your expressions to
//Reply[Name="Name of Reply"]/ContentsofReply/Content/IDofContent/text()
to get
['ID of Content 1']
and to
//Reply[Name="Name of Reply"]/ID/text()
to get
['ID of Reply 1']