[Python-Dev] ElementTree in stdlib

Wed Dec 14 17:39:55 CET 2005

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> On 12/13/05, Walter Dörwald <walter at livinglogic.de> wrote:
> > Having to define classes that conform to a certain API and registering
> > instances of those classes as callbacks with the parser doesn't look
> > that pythonic to me. An iterator API seems much more pythonic.
>> Perhaps. Although the SAX API lets you leave a callback undefined if
> you don't have a need to handle those events; that's a bit trickier to
> do with an iterator.

Well, suppose you want to dump the text of a document.
 for e in iterparse(filename):
 if e.isText():
 out.write(e.data)
Not tricky.
> > Also the different callbacks have different signatures.

True. With SAX I always have to look up the signatures. The iterator
yields Node-like objects in document order. I don't have to remember
signatures.
But the biggest advantage of an iterator-based API would be: when you
hit an element, you can easily pass control to a function that knows
how to parse that particular element. parsePlay() can call
parseAct(), which can call parseScene(). To do anything like that
with SAX, you have to write a bunch of dispatch code.
-j