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Python for experienced programmers
Actually parsing an XML document is very simple: one line of code. However, before we get to that line of code, we need to take a short detour to talk about packages.
That sounds complicated, but it’s really not. Looking at the actual implementation may help. Packages are little more than directories of modules; nested packages are subdirectories. The modules within a package (or a nested package) are still just .py files, like always, except that they’re in a subdirectory instead of the main lib/ directory of your Python installation.
Python21/ root Python installation (home of the executable) | +--lib/ library directory (home of the standard library modules) | +-- xml/ xml package (really just a directory with other stuff in it) | +--sax/ xml.sax package (again, just a directory) | +--dom/ xml.dom package (contains minidom.py) | +--parsers/ xml.parsers package (used internally)
So when we say from xml.dom import minidom, Python figures out that that means “look in the xml directory for a dom directory, and look in that for the minidom module, and import it as minidom”. But Python is even smarter than that; not only can you import entire modules contained within a package, you can selectively import specific classes or functions from a module contained within a package. You can also import the package itself as a module. The syntax is all the same; Python figures out what you mean based on the file layout of the package, and automatically does the right thing.
>>> from xml.dom import minidom >>> minidom <module 'xml.dom.minidom' from 'C:\Python21\lib\xml\dom\minidom.pyc'> >>> minidom.Element <class xml.dom.minidom.Element at 01095744> >>> from xml.dom.minidom import Element >>> Element <class xml.dom.minidom.Element at 01095744> >>> minidom.Element <class xml.dom.minidom.Element at 01095744> >>> from xml import dom >>> dom <module 'xml.dom' from 'C:\Python21\lib\xml\dom\__init__.pyc'> >>> import xml >>> xml <module 'xml' from 'C:\Python21\lib\xml\__init__.pyc'>
|Here we’re importing a module (minidom) from a nested package (xml.dom). The result is that minidom is imported into our namespace, and in order to reference classes within the minidom module (like Element), we have to preface them with the module name.|
|Here we are importing a class (Element) from a module (minidom) from a nested package (xml.dom). The result is that Element is imported directly into our namespace. Note that this does not interfere with the previous import; the Element class can now be referenced in two ways (but it’s all still the same class).|
|Here we are importing the dom package (a nested package of xml) as a module in and of itself. Any level of a package can be treated as a module, as we’ll see in a moment. It can even have its own attributes and methods, just the modules we’ve seen before.|
|Here we are importing the root level xml package as a module.|
So how can a package (which is just a directory on disk) be imported and treated as a module (which is always a file on disk)? The answer is the magical __init__.py file. You see, packages are not simply directories; they are directories with a specific file, __init__.py, inside. This file defines the attributes and methods of the package. For instance, xml.dom contains a Node class, which is defined in xml/dom/__init__.py. When you import a package as a module (like dom from xml), you’re really importing its __init__.py file.
|A package is a directory with the special __init__.py file in it. The __init__.py file defines the attributes and methods of the package. It doesn’t have to define anything; it can just be an empty file, but it has to exist. But if __init__.py doesn’t exist, the directory is just a directory, not a package, and it can’t be imported or contain modules or nested packages.|
So why bother with packages? Well, they provide a way to logically group related modules. Instead of having an xml package with sax and dom packages inside, the authors could have chosen to put all the sax functionality in xmlsax.py and all the dom functionality in xmldom.py, or even put all of it in a single module. But that would have been unwieldy (as of this writing, the XML package has over 3000 lines of code) and difficult to manage (separate source files mean multiple people can work on different areas simultaneously).
If you ever find yourself writing a large subsystem in Python (or, more likely, when you realize that your small subsystem has grown into a large one), invest some time designing a good package architecture. It’s one of the many things Python is good at, so take advantage of it.
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