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  10 </style><title>Python and bindings</title></head><body bgcolor="#8b7765" text="#000000" link="#a06060" vlink="#000000"><table border="0" width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" align="center"><tr><td width="120"><a href="http://swpat.ffii.org/"><img src="epatents.png" alt="Action against software patents" /></a></td><td width="180"><a href="http://www.gnome.org/"><img src="gnome2.png" alt="Gnome2 Logo" /></a><a href="http://www.w3.org/Status"><img src="w3c.png" alt="W3C Logo" /></a><a href="http://www.redhat.com/"><img src="redhat.gif" alt="Red Hat Logo" /></a><div align="left"><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/"><img src="Libxml2-Logo-180x168.gif" alt="Made with Libxml2 Logo" /></a></div></td><td><table border="0" width="90%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="center" bgcolor="#000000"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" bgcolor="#fffacd"><tr><td align="center"><h1>The XML C parser and toolkit of Gnome</h1><h2>Python and bindings</h2></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%" align="center"><tr><td bgcolor="#8b7765"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="100%"><tr><td valign="top" width="200" bgcolor="#8b7765"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3"><tr><td colspan="1" bgcolor="#eecfa1" align="center"><center><b>Developer Menu</b></center></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><form action="search.php" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded" method="get"><input name="query" type="text" size="20" value="" /><input name="submit" type="submit" value="Search ..." /></form><ul><li><a href="index.html" style="font-weight:bold">Main Menu</a></li><li><a href="html/index.html" style="font-weight:bold">Reference Manual</a></li><li><a href="examples/index.html" style="font-weight:bold">Code 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href="site.xsl">stylesheet</a></li></ul></td></tr></table><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3"><tr><td colspan="1" bgcolor="#eecfa1" align="center"><center><b>API Indexes</b></center></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><ul><li><a href="APIchunk0.html">Alphabetic</a></li><li><a href="APIconstructors.html">Constructors</a></li><li><a href="APIfunctions.html">Functions/Types</a></li><li><a href="APIfiles.html">Modules</a></li><li><a href="APIsymbols.html">Symbols</a></li></ul></td></tr></table><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3"><tr><td colspan="1" bgcolor="#eecfa1" align="center"><center><b>Related links</b></center></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><ul><li><a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/">Mail archive</a></li><li><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/">XSLT libxslt</a></li><li><a href="http://phd.cs.unibo.it/gdome2/">DOM gdome2</a></li><li><a href="http://www.aleksey.com/xmlsec/">XML-DSig xmlsec</a></li><li><a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/">FTP</a></li><li><a href="http://www.zlatkovic.com/projects/libxml/">Windows binaries</a></li><li><a href="http://www.blastwave.org/packages.php/libxml2">Solaris binaries</a></li><li><a href="http://www.explain.com.au/oss/libxml2xslt.html">MacOsX binaries</a></li><li><a href="http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/">C++ bindings</a></li><li><a href="http://www.zend.com/php5/articles/php5-xmlphp.php#Heading4">PHP bindings</a></li><li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/libxml2-pas/">Pascal bindings</a></li><li><a href="http://rubyforge.org/projects/xml-tools/">Ruby bindings</a></li><li><a href="http://tclxml.sourceforge.net/">Tcl bindings</a></li><li><a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=libxml2">Bug Tracker</a></li></ul></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td><td valign="top" bgcolor="#8b7765"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" width="100%"><tr><td><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><tr><td><table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" width="100%"><tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><p>There are a number of language bindings and wrappers available for
  11 libxml2, the list below is not exhaustive. Please contact the <a href="http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/xml-bindings">xml-bindings@gnome.org</a>
  12 (<a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml-bindings/">archives</a>) in
  13 order to get updates to this list or to discuss the specific topic of libxml2
  14 or libxslt wrappers or bindings:</p><ul><li><a href="http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/">Libxml++</a> seems the
  15     most up-to-date C++ bindings for libxml2, check the <a href="http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/reference/html/hierarchy.html">documentation</a>
  16     and the <a href="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/libxmlplusplus/libxml%2b%2b/examples/">examples</a>.</li>
  17   <li>There is another <a href="http://libgdome-cpp.berlios.de/">C++ wrapper
  18     based on the gdome2 bindings</a> maintained by Tobias Peters.</li>
  19   <li>and a third C++ wrapper by Peter Jones &lt;pjones@pmade.org&gt;
  20     <p>Website: <a href="http://pmade.org/pjones/software/xmlwrapp/">http://pmade.org/pjones/software/xmlwrapp/</a></p>
  21   </li>
  22   <li><a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/2001-March/msg00014.html">Matt
  23     Sergeant</a> developed <a href="http://axkit.org/download/">XML::LibXSLT</a>, a Perl wrapper for
  24     libxml2/libxslt as part of the <a href="http://axkit.com/">AxKit XML
  25     application server</a>.</li>
  26   <li>If you're interested into scripting XML processing, have a look at <a href="http://xsh.sourceforge.net/">XSH</a> an XML editing shell based on
  27     Libxml2 Perl bindings.</li>
  28   <li><a href="mailto:dkuhlman@cutter.rexx.com">Dave Kuhlman</a> provides an
  29     earlier version of the libxml/libxslt <a href="http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman">wrappers for Python</a>.</li>
  30   <li>Gopal.V and Peter Minten develop <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/libxmlsharp">libxml#</a>, a set of
  31     C# libxml2 bindings.</li>
  32   <li>Petr Kozelka provides <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/libxml2-pas">Pascal units to glue
  33     libxml2</a> with Kylix, Delphi and other Pascal compilers.</li>
  34   <li>Uwe Fechner also provides <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/idom2-pas/">idom2</a>, a DOM2
  35     implementation for Kylix2/D5/D6 from Borland.</li>
  36   <li>There is <a href="http://rubyforge.org/projects/xml-tools/">bindings for Ruby</a>  and
  37     libxml2 bindings are also available in Ruby through the <a href="http://libgdome-ruby.berlios.de/">libgdome-ruby</a> module
  38     maintained by Tobias Peters.</li>
  39   <li>Steve Ball and contributors maintains <a href="http://tclxml.sourceforge.net/">libxml2 and libxslt bindings for
  40     Tcl</a>.</li>
  41   <li>libxml2 and libxslt is the default XML library for PHP5.</li>
  42   <li><a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/classpathx/">LibxmlJ</a> is
  43     an effort to create a 100% JAXP-compatible Java wrapper for libxml2 and
  44     libxslt as part of GNU ClasspathX project.</li>
  45   <li>Patrick McPhee provides Rexx bindings fof libxml2 and libxslt, look for
  46     <a href="http://www.interlog.com/~ptjm/software.html">RexxXML</a>.</li>
  47   <li><a href="http://www.satimage.fr/software/en/xml_suite.html">Satimage</a>
  48     provides <a href="http://www.satimage.fr/software/en/downloads_osaxen.html">XMLLib
  49     osax</a>. This is an osax for Mac OS X with a set of commands to
  50     implement in AppleScript the XML DOM, XPATH and XSLT. Also includes
  51     commands for Property-lists (Apple's fast lookup table XML format.)</li>
  52   <li>Francesco Montorsi developped
  53 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=51305&amp;package_id=45182">wxXml2</a>
  54     wrappers that interface libxml2, allowing wxWidgets applications to
  55     load/save/edit XML instances.</li>
  56 </ul><p>The distribution includes a set of Python bindings, which are guaranteed
  57 to be maintained as part of the library in the future, though the Python
  58 interface have not yet reached the completeness of the C API.</p><p>Note that some of the Python purist dislike the default set of Python
  59 bindings, rather than complaining I suggest they have a look at
  60 <a href="http://codespeak.net/lxml/">lxml the more pythonic bindings for libxml2 and libxslt</a> and
  61 <a href="http://codespeak.net/mailman/listinfo/lxml-dev">help Martijn Faassen</a>
  62 complete those.</p><p><a href="mailto:stephane.bidoul@softwareag.com">Stéphane Bidoul</a>
  63 maintains <a href="http://users.skynet.be/sbi/libxml-python/">a Windows port
  64 of the Python bindings</a>.</p><p>Note to people interested in building bindings, the API is formalized as
  65 <a href="libxml2-api.xml">an XML API description file</a> which allows to
  66 automate a large part of the Python bindings, this includes function
  67 descriptions, enums, structures, typedefs, etc... The Python script used to
  68 build the bindings is python/generator.py in the source distribution.</p><p>To install the Python bindings there are 2 options:</p><ul><li>If you use an RPM based distribution, simply install the <a href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=libxml2-python">libxml2-python
  69     RPM</a> (and if needed the <a href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=libxslt-python">libxslt-python
  70     RPM</a>).</li>
  71   <li>Otherwise use the <a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/python/">libxml2-python
  72     module distribution</a> corresponding to your installed version of
  73     libxml2 and libxslt. Note that to install it you will need both libxml2
  74     and libxslt installed and run "python setup.py build install" in the
  75     module tree.</li>
  76 </ul><p>The distribution includes a set of examples and regression tests for the
  77 python bindings in the <code>python/tests</code> directory. Here are some
  78 excerpts from those tests:</p><h3>tst.py:</h3><p>This is a basic test of the file interface and DOM navigation:</p><pre>import libxml2, sys
  79
  80 doc = libxml2.parseFile("tst.xml")
  81 if doc.name != "tst.xml":
  82     print "doc.name failed"
  83     sys.exit(1)
  84 root = doc.children
  85 if root.name != "doc":
  86     print "root.name failed"
  87     sys.exit(1)
  88 child = root.children
  89 if child.name != "foo":
  90     print "child.name failed"
  91     sys.exit(1)
  92 doc.freeDoc()</pre><p>The Python module is called libxml2; parseFile is the equivalent of
  93 xmlParseFile (most of the bindings are automatically generated, and the xml
  94 prefix is removed and the casing convention are kept). All node seen at the
  95 binding level share the same subset of accessors:</p><ul><li><code>name</code> : returns the node name</li>
  96   <li><code>type</code> : returns a string indicating the node type</li>
  97   <li><code>content</code> : returns the content of the node, it is based on
  98     xmlNodeGetContent() and hence is recursive.</li>
  99   <li><code>parent</code> , <code>children</code>, <code>last</code>,
 100     <code>next</code>, <code>prev</code>, <code>doc</code>,
 101     <code>properties</code>: pointing to the associated element in the tree,
 102     those may return None in case no such link exists.</li>
 103 </ul><p>Also note the need to explicitly deallocate documents with freeDoc() .
 104 Reference counting for libxml2 trees would need quite a lot of work to
 105 function properly, and rather than risk memory leaks if not implemented
 106 correctly it sounds safer to have an explicit function to free a tree. The
 107 wrapper python objects like doc, root or child are them automatically garbage
 108 collected.</p><h3>validate.py:</h3><p>This test check the validation interfaces and redirection of error
 109 messages:</p><pre>import libxml2
 110
 111 #deactivate error messages from the validation
 112 def noerr(ctx, str):
 113     pass
 114
 115 libxml2.registerErrorHandler(noerr, None)
 116
 117 ctxt = libxml2.createFileParserCtxt("invalid.xml")
 118 ctxt.validate(1)
 119 ctxt.parseDocument()
 120 doc = ctxt.doc()
 121 valid = ctxt.isValid()
 122 doc.freeDoc()
 123 if valid != 0:
 124     print "validity check failed"</pre><p>The first thing to notice is the call to registerErrorHandler(), it
 125 defines a new error handler global to the library. It is used to avoid seeing
 126 the error messages when trying to validate the invalid document.</p><p>The main interest of that test is the creation of a parser context with
 127 createFileParserCtxt() and how the behaviour can be changed before calling
 128 parseDocument() . Similarly the informations resulting from the parsing phase
 129 are also available using context methods.</p><p>Contexts like nodes are defined as class and the libxml2 wrappers maps the
 130 C function interfaces in terms of objects method as much as possible. The
 131 best to get a complete view of what methods are supported is to look at the
 132 libxml2.py module containing all the wrappers.</p><h3>push.py:</h3><p>This test show how to activate the push parser interface:</p><pre>import libxml2
 133
 134 ctxt = libxml2.createPushParser(None, "&lt;foo", 4, "test.xml")
 135 ctxt.parseChunk("/&gt;", 2, 1)
 136 doc = ctxt.doc()
 137
 138 doc.freeDoc()</pre><p>The context is created with a special call based on the
 139 xmlCreatePushParser() from the C library. The first argument is an optional
 140 SAX callback object, then the initial set of data, the length and the name of
 141 the resource in case URI-References need to be computed by the parser.</p><p>Then the data are pushed using the parseChunk() method, the last call
 142 setting the third argument terminate to 1.</p><h3>pushSAX.py:</h3><p>this test show the use of the event based parsing interfaces. In this case
 143 the parser does not build a document, but provides callback information as
 144 the parser makes progresses analyzing the data being provided:</p><pre>import libxml2
 145 log = ""
 146
 147 class callback:
 148     def startDocument(self):
 149         global log
 150         log = log + "startDocument:"
 151
 152     def endDocument(self):
 153         global log
 154         log = log + "endDocument:"
 155
 156     def startElement(self, tag, attrs):
 157         global log
 158         log = log + "startElement %s %s:" % (tag, attrs)
 159
 160     def endElement(self, tag):
 161         global log
 162         log = log + "endElement %s:" % (tag)
 163
 164     def characters(self, data):
 165         global log
 166         log = log + "characters: %s:" % (data)
 167
 168     def warning(self, msg):
 169         global log
 170         log = log + "warning: %s:" % (msg)
 171
 172     def error(self, msg):
 173         global log
 174         log = log + "error: %s:" % (msg)
 175
 176     def fatalError(self, msg):
 177         global log
 178         log = log + "fatalError: %s:" % (msg)
 179
 180 handler = callback()
 181
 182 ctxt = libxml2.createPushParser(handler, "&lt;foo", 4, "test.xml")
 183 chunk = " url='tst'&gt;b"
 184 ctxt.parseChunk(chunk, len(chunk), 0)
 185 chunk = "ar&lt;/foo&gt;"
 186 ctxt.parseChunk(chunk, len(chunk), 1)
 187
 188 reference = "startDocument:startElement foo {'url': 'tst'}:" + \
 189             "characters: bar:endElement foo:endDocument:"
 190 if log != reference:
 191     print "Error got: %s" % log
 192     print "Expected: %s" % reference</pre><p>The key object in that test is the handler, it provides a number of entry
 193 points which can be called by the parser as it makes progresses to indicate
 194 the information set obtained. The full set of callback is larger than what
 195 the callback class in that specific example implements (see the SAX
 196 definition for a complete list). The wrapper will only call those supplied by
 197 the object when activated. The startElement receives the names of the element
 198 and a dictionary containing the attributes carried by this element.</p><p>Also note that the reference string generated from the callback shows a
 199 single character call even though the string "bar" is passed to the parser
 200 from 2 different call to parseChunk()</p><h3>xpath.py:</h3><p>This is a basic test of XPath wrappers support</p><pre>import libxml2
 201
 202 doc = libxml2.parseFile("tst.xml")
 203 ctxt = doc.xpathNewContext()
 204 res = ctxt.xpathEval("//*")
 205 if len(res) != 2:
 206     print "xpath query: wrong node set size"
 207     sys.exit(1)
 208 if res[0].name != "doc" or res[1].name != "foo":
 209     print "xpath query: wrong node set value"
 210     sys.exit(1)
 211 doc.freeDoc()
 212 ctxt.xpathFreeContext()</pre><p>This test parses a file, then create an XPath context to evaluate XPath
 213 expression on it. The xpathEval() method execute an XPath query and returns
 214 the result mapped in a Python way. String and numbers are natively converted,
 215 and node sets are returned as a tuple of libxml2 Python nodes wrappers. Like
 216 the document, the XPath context need to be freed explicitly, also not that
 217 the result of the XPath query may point back to the document tree and hence
 218 the document must be freed after the result of the query is used.</p><h3>xpathext.py:</h3><p>This test shows how to extend the XPath engine with functions written in
 219 python:</p><pre>import libxml2
 220
 221 def foo(ctx, x):
 222     return x + 1
 223
 224 doc = libxml2.parseFile("tst.xml")
 225 ctxt = doc.xpathNewContext()
 226 libxml2.registerXPathFunction(ctxt._o, "foo", None, foo)
 227 res = ctxt.xpathEval("foo(1)")
 228 if res != 2:
 229     print "xpath extension failure"
 230 doc.freeDoc()
 231 ctxt.xpathFreeContext()</pre><p>Note how the extension function is registered with the context (but that
 232 part is not yet finalized, this may change slightly in the future).</p><h3>tstxpath.py:</h3><p>This test is similar to the previous one but shows how the extension
 233 function can access the XPath evaluation context:</p><pre>def foo(ctx, x):
 234     global called
 235
 236     #
 237     # test that access to the XPath evaluation contexts
 238     #
 239     pctxt = libxml2.xpathParserContext(_obj=ctx)
 240     ctxt = pctxt.context()
 241     called = ctxt.function()
 242     return x + 1</pre><p>All the interfaces around the XPath parser(or rather evaluation) context
 243 are not finalized, but it should be sufficient to do contextual work at the
 244 evaluation point.</p><h3>Memory debugging:</h3><p>last but not least, all tests starts with the following prologue:</p><pre>#memory debug specific
 245 libxml2.debugMemory(1)</pre><p>and ends with the following epilogue:</p><pre>#memory debug specific
 246 libxml2.cleanupParser()
 247 if libxml2.debugMemory(1) == 0:
 248     print "OK"
 249 else:
 250     print "Memory leak %d bytes" % (libxml2.debugMemory(1))
 251     libxml2.dumpMemory()</pre><p>Those activate the memory debugging interface of libxml2 where all
 252 allocated block in the library are tracked. The prologue then cleans up the
 253 library state and checks that all allocated memory has been freed. If not it
 254 calls dumpMemory() which saves that list in a <code>.memdump</code> file.</p><p><a href="bugs.html">Daniel Veillard</a></p></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></body></html>