Question

I’m trying to make an application to create a xml file and I want to assign a text to certain elements. This text consists on image files on a folder. The code is as follows:

    import glob
    import os
    import os.path

    from xml.etree import ElementTree
    from xml.dom import minidom
    import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

    def prettify(elem):
    """Return a pretty-printed XML string for the Element.
    """
        rough_string = ElementTree.tostring(elem, 'utf-8')
        reparsed = minidom.parseString(rough_string)
        return reparsed.toprettyxml(indent="  ")

    path = "/home/unkuiri/Ubuntu One/Wallpapers/*"


    background = ET.Element('background')
    starttime = ET.SubElement(background, 'starttime')
    year = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'year')
    month = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'month')
    day = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'day')
    hour = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'hour')
    minute = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'minute')
    second = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'second')
    static = ET.SubElement(background, 'static')
    duration_stat = ET.SubElement(static, 'duration')
    files = ET.SubElement(static, 'file')
    transition = ET.SubElement(background, 'transition')
    duration_trans = ET.SubElement(transition, 'duration')
    from1 = ET.SubElement(transition, 'from')
    to = ET.SubElement(transition, 'to')

    dirList = glob.glob(path)

    while len(background.findall("./static/file")) <= len([name for name in os.listdir('.') if os.path.isfile(name)]):
            background.append(static)
            background.append(transition)
            continue

    for fname in dirList:   

        to.text = fname
        files.text = fname
        from1.text = fname


    print prettify(background)

This code outputs a correctly formatted xml but only with the last path, repeating it as many times as the number of files in folder. What I want is for it to print one path per “file” element and that same path on the preceeding “to” element and the next from “element”. Maybe it is a simple solution that I’m not aware of. I’m still a newbie.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I’ve managed to solve this question with this code:

    import glob
    from xml.etree import ElementTree
    from xml.dom import minidom

    def prettify(elem):
        """Return a pretty-printed XML string for the Element.
        """
        rough_string = ElementTree.tostring(elem, 'utf-8')
        reparsed = minidom.parseString(rough_string)
        return reparsed.toprettyxml(indent="  ")

    import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

    path = "/home/unkuiri/Ubuntu One/Wallpapers/*"


    background = ET.Element('background')
    dirList = glob.glob(path)
    starttime = ET.SubElement(background, 'starttime')
    year = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'year')
    year.text = '2012'
    month = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'month')
    month.text = '10'
    day = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'day')
    day.text = '10'
    hour = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'hour')
    hour.text = '00'
    minute = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'minute')
    minute.text = '00'
    second = ET.SubElement(starttime, 'second')
    second.text = '00'


    for i,fname in enumerate(dirList):    

        static = ET.SubElement(background, 'static')
        duration_stat = ET.SubElement(static, 'duration')
        duration_stat.text = '1795.0'
        files = ET.SubElement(static, 'file')
        transition = ET.SubElement(background, 'transition')
        duration_trans = ET.SubElement(transition, 'duration')
        duration_trans.text = '5.0'
        from1 = ET.SubElement(transition, 'from')
        to = ET.SubElement(transition, 'to')

        from1.text = dirList[i-1]

        files.text = dirList[i-1]

        to.text = dirList[i]


    print prettify(background)