Professional IronPython™

Chapter 13. Working with XML Data

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Interacting with XML using the .NET XML classes

• Interacting with XML using the XMLUtil module

• Interacting with XML using the Python modules

The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is one of the easiest ways to move data between systems without losing the data context. (Although every system on the planet accepts text data, you can't incorporate context with text data.) In addition, Web services and many applications use XML as an essential data storage strategy. In short, anyone writing an application today is bound to run into some form of XML. Fortunately, IronPython provides robust XML handling capabilities that don't require you to jump through too many hoops (unlike some languages that make it nearly impossible to perform some XML tasks).

When working with IronPython, you have three choices for working with XML: the .NET Framework, XMLUtil, and Python modules. This chapter provides an overview of all three techniques. When you finish this chapter, you should have a good idea of what each technique can do for you and understand the basics of using each technique.

Note

XML comes in a number of forms. In fact, XML comes in so many forms that it would be quite easy to write an entire book on just one of the techniques described in this chapter, much less all three. Consequently, you shouldn't consider this chapter the end of the IronPython XML experience. Rather, you should consider it a good start that you can use to find additional ...