I try to use lxml to parse xml, but I have a problem:
ValueError: invalid x escape
Here is my code:
from lxml import etree root=etree.fromstring('C:UsershptphuongDesktopxmltest.xml')
I’m a newbie on lxml. Please help me to fix this issue. There is my xml content
<?xml version="1.0"?> <catalog> <book id="bk101"> <author>Gambardella, Matthew</author> <title>XML Developer's Guide</title> <genre>Computer</genre> <price>44.95</price> <publish_date>2000-10-01</publish_date> <description>An in-depth look at creating applications with XML.</description> </book> <book id="bk102"> <author>Ralls, Kim</author> <title>Midnight Rain</title> <genre>Fantasy</genre> <price>5.95</price> <publish_date>2000-12-16</publish_date> <description>A former architect battles corporate zombies, an evil sorceress, and her own childhood to become queen of the world.</description> </book> <book id="bk103"> <author>Corets, Eva</author> <title>Maeve Ascendant</title> <genre>Fantasy</genre> <price>5.95</price> <publish_date>2000-11-17</publish_date> <description>After the collapse of a nanotechnology society in England, the young survivors lay the foundation for a new society.</description> </book> <book id="bk104"> <author>Corets, Eva</author> <title>Oberon's Legacy</title> <genre>Fantasy</genre> <price>5.95</price> <publish_date>2001-03-10</publish_date> <description>In post-apocalypse England, the mysterious agent known only as Oberon helps to create a new life for the inhabitants of London. Sequel to Maeve Ascendant.</description> </book> <book id="bk105"> <author>Corets, Eva</author> <title>The Sundered Grail</title> <genre>Fantasy</genre> <price>5.95</price> <publish_date>2001-09-10</publish_date> <description>The two daughters of Maeve, half-sisters, battle one another for control of England. Sequel to Oberon's Legacy.</description> </book> <book id="bk106"> <author>Randall, Cynthia</author> <title>Lover Birds</title> <genre>Romance</genre> <price>4.95</price> <publish_date>2000-09-02</publish_date> <description>When Carla meets Paul at an ornithology conference, tempers fly as feathers get ruffled.</description> </book> <book id="bk107"> <author>Thurman, Paula</author> <title>Splish Splash</title> <genre>Romance</genre> <price>4.95</price> <publish_date>2000-11-02</publish_date> <description>A deep sea diver finds true love twenty thousand leagues beneath the sea.</description> </book> <book id="bk108"> <author>Knorr, Stefan</author> <title>Creepy Crawlies</title> <genre>Horror</genre> <price>4.95</price> <publish_date>2000-12-06</publish_date> <description>An anthology of horror stories about roaches, centipedes, scorpions and other insects.</description> </book> <book id="bk109"> <author>Kress, Peter</author> <title>Paradox Lost</title> <genre>Science Fiction</genre> <price>6.95</price> <publish_date>2000-11-02</publish_date> <description>After an inadvertant trip through a Heisenberg Uncertainty Device, James Salway discovers the problems of being quantum.</description> </book> <book id="bk110"> <author>O'Brien, Tim</author> <title>Microsoft .NET: The Programming Bible</title> <genre>Computer</genre> <price>36.95</price> <publish_date>2000-12-09</publish_date> <description>Microsoft's .NET initiative is explored in detail in this deep programmer's reference.</description> </book> <book id="bk111"> <author>O'Brien, Tim</author> <title>MSXML3: A Comprehensive Guide</title> <genre>Computer</genre> <price>36.95</price> <publish_date>2000-12-01</publish_date> <description>The Microsoft MSXML3 parser is covered in detail, with attention to XML DOM interfaces, XSLT processing, SAX and more.</description> </book> <book id="bk112"> <author>Galos, Mike</author> <title>Visual Studio 7: A Comprehensive Guide</title> <genre>Computer</genre> <price>49.95</price> <publish_date>2001-04-16</publish_date> <description>Microsoft Visual Studio 7 is explored in depth, looking at how Visual Basic, Visual C++, C#, and ASP+ are integrated into a comprehensive development environment.</description> </book> </catalog>
One more, could we have parse xml from url with lxml.
Thanks & Best Regards,
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Answer
The reason you are getting the error message invalid x escape
is that you are using etree.fromstring()
to attempt to load XML from a file. This function is used to load XML directly from a string, and you are passing it a path with in it.
In effect the function is trying to parse your file path as XML. The path contains escape characters with invalid characters following them (i.e.
n
would be a valid newline)
To load your XML from a file, you need to use the etree.parse()
function as follows:
from lxml import etree root = etree.parse(r'C:UsershptphuongDesktopxmltest.xml') # Print the loaded XML print etree.tostring(root)
When passing file paths to Python functions, you should normally prefix your string with r
to tell Python not to try and escape the characters inside your path. For example
c:temp
would actually result in passing c:<tab character>emp
, i.e. the t
is converted into a tab character. Adding the r
to the start stops this happening.
Alternatively you can pass the path as follows:
path = "c:\folder1\folder2\myfile.xml"