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//usr/share/doc/python-lxml-2.2.3/doc/lxml.mgp

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lxml - a sane Python wrapper for libxml

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Martijn Faassen, Infrae
faassen@infrae.com

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The C library libxml has huge benefits

Standards-compliant XML support

full-featured

actively maintained by XML exports

fast. fast! FAST!

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Features of libxml

Parsing

Tree based (DOM-ish) XML structure

XPath support

XSLT support (libxslt)

Relax NG (schema) support

And more

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But libxml already has Python bindings!

very low level and C-ish (not Pythonic)

underdocumented. huge, you get lost in them

works with UTF-8, not native Python unicode

can cause segfaults from Python

have to do manual memory management!

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lxml is a new Python binding for libxml

Aims (read: TODOS)

Pythonic API

Documented

Use Python unicode strings in API

Safe (no segfaults)

No manual memory management!

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Tradeoffs

Slower because of better wrapping.

But libxml is so fast this likely doesn't matter much.

Not all features of libxml exposed (unless you help)

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What is there now - Proof of concept

Automatic destruction of documents (refcounted)

Start of ElementTree style API for tree

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Future

Fix bugs, add features

Moving into svn repository on codespeak.net

Help!