Serialize Python dictionary to XML

There is simple JSON serialization module with name "simplejson" which easily serializes Python objects to JSON.

I'm looking for similar module which can serialize to XML.

There is huTools.structured.dict2xml which tries to be compatible to simplejson in spirit. You can give it hints how to wrap nested sub-structures. Check the documentation for huTools.structured.dict2et which returns ElementTree Objects instead if the strings returned by dict2xml.

>>> data = {"kommiauftragsnr":2103839, "anliefertermin":"2009-11-25", "prioritaet": 7,
... "ort": u"Hücksenwagen",
... "positionen": [{"menge": 12, "artnr": "14640/XL", "posnr": 1},],
... "versandeinweisungen": [{"guid": "2103839-XalE", "bezeichner": "avisierung48h",
...                          "anweisung": "48h vor Anlieferung unter 0900-LOGISTIK avisieren"},
... ]}

>>> print ET.tostring(dict2et(data, 'kommiauftrag',
... listnames={'positionen': 'position', 'versandeinweisungen': 'versandeinweisung'}))
'''<kommiauftrag>
<anliefertermin>2009-11-25</anliefertermin>
<positionen>
    <position>
        <posnr>1</posnr>
        <menge>12</menge>
        <artnr>14640/XL</artnr>
    </position>
</positionen>
<ort>H&#xC3;&#xBC;cksenwagen</ort>
<versandeinweisungen>
    <versandeinweisung>
        <bezeichner>avisierung48h</bezeichner>
        <anweisung>48h vor Anlieferung unter 0900-LOGISTIK avisieren</anweisung>
        <guid>2103839-XalE</guid>
    </versandeinweisung>
</versandeinweisungen>
<prioritaet>7</prioritaet>
<kommiauftragsnr>2103839</kommiauftragsnr>
</kommiauftrag>'''

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/415983/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyxser/

http://soapy.sourceforge.net/

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-pyth5/

http://gnosis.cx/publish/programming/xml_matters_1.txt

try this one. only problem I don't use attributes (because i dont like them)
dict2xml on pynuggets.wordpress.com
dict2xml on activestate

from xml.dom.minidom import Document
import copy

class dict2xml(object):
    doc     = Document()

    def __init__(self, structure):
        if len(structure) == 1:
            rootName    = str(structure.keys()[0])
            self.root   = self.doc.createElement(rootName)

            self.doc.appendChild(self.root)
            self.build(self.root, structure[rootName])

    def build(self, father, structure):
        if type(structure) == dict:
            for k in structure:
                tag = self.doc.createElement(k)
                father.appendChild(tag)
                self.build(tag, structure[k])
        
        elif type(structure) == list:
            grandFather = father.parentNode
            tagName     = father.tagName
            grandFather.removeChild(father)
            for l in structure:
                tag = self.doc.createElement(tagName)
                self.build(tag, l)
                grandFather.appendChild(tag)
            
        else:
            data    = str(structure)
            tag     = self.doc.createTextNode(data)
            father.appendChild(tag)
    
    def display(self):
        print self.doc.toprettyxml(indent="  ")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    example = {'auftrag':{"kommiauftragsnr":2103839, "anliefertermin":"2009-11-25", "prioritaet": 7,"ort": u"Huecksenwagen","positionen": [{"menge": 12, "artnr": "14640/XL", "posnr": 1},],"versandeinweisungen": [{"guid": "2103839-XalE", "bezeichner": "avisierung48h","anweisung": "48h vor Anlieferung unter 0900-LOGISTIK avisieren"},]}}
    xml = dict2xml(example)
    xml.display()

I wrote a simple function that serializes dictionaries to xml (under 30 lines).

Usage:

mydict = {
	'name': 'The Andersson\'s',
	'size': 4,
	'children': {
		'total-age': 62,
		'child': [
			{
				'name': 'Tom',
				'sex': 'male',
			},
			{
				'name': 'Betty',
				'sex': 'female',
			}
		]
	},
}
print(dict2xml(mydict, 'family'))

Result:

<family name="The Andersson's" size="4">
        <children total-age="62">
                <child name="Tom" sex="male"/>
                <child name="Betty" sex="female"/>
        </children>
</family>

The full source (including an example) can be found on https://gist.github.com/reimund/5435343/

Note: This function will serialize dictionary entries as attributes rather than text nodes. Modifying it to support text would be very easy.

Most objects in Python are represented as dicts underneath:

>>> class Fred(object) : 
...    def __init__(self, n) : self.n = n 
... 
>>> a = Fred(100)
>>> print a.__dict__ 
{'n': 100}

So this is similar to asking how to convert dicts to XML. There are tools for converting dict to/from XML at:

http://www.picklingtools.com

Here is a simple example:

    >>> import xmltools
    
    >>> d = {'a':1, 'b':2.2, 'c':'three' }
    >>> xx = xmltools.WriteToXMLString(d)
    >>> print xx
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <top>
      <a>1</a>
      <b>2.2</b>
      <c>three</c>
    </top>

There is a lot of documentation at the web site showing examples:

XML Tools Manual

It is difficult to convert "exactly" between dicts and XML: What is a list? What do you do with attributes? How do you handle numeric keys? A lot of these issues have been addressed and are discussed in the XML tools documentation (above).

Does speed matter to you? Or does ease of use matter? There is a pure C++ module (all written in C++), a pure Python module (all written in Python), and a Python C Extension module (written in C++, but wrapped so Python can call it). The C++ and the Python C Extension module are orders of magnitude faster, but of course require compiling to get going. The Python module should just work, but is slower: