How to use xmltodict to get items out of an xml file

Using your example:

import xmltodictwith open('artikelen.xml') as fd:    doc = xmltodict.parse(fd.read())

If you examine doc, you'll see it's an OrderedDict, ordered by tag:

>>> docOrderedDict([('artikelen',              OrderedDict([('artikel',                            [OrderedDict([('@nummer', '121'),                                          ('code', 'ABC123'),                                          ('naam', 'Highlight pen'),                                          ('voorraad', '231'),                                          ('prijs', '0.56')]),                             OrderedDict([('@nummer', '123'),                                          ('code', 'PQR678'),                                          ('naam', 'Nietmachine'),                                          ('voorraad', '587'),                                          ('prijs', '9.99')])])]))])

The root node is called artikelen, and there a subnode artikel which is a list of OrderedDict objects, so if you want the code for every article, you would do:

codes = []for artikel in doc['artikelen']['artikel']:    codes.append(artikel['code'])# >>> codes# ['ABC123', 'PQR678']

If you specifically want the code only when nummer is 121, you could do this:

code = Nonefor artikel in doc['artikelen']['artikel']:    if artikel['@nummer'] == '121':        code = artikel['code']        break

That said, if you're parsing XML documents and want to search for a specific value like that, I would consider using XPath expressions, which are supported by ElementTree.

This is using xml.etreeYou can try this:

for artikelobj in root.findall('artikel'):    print artikelobj.find('code')

if you want to extract a specific code based on the attribute 'nummer' of artikel, then you can try this:

for artikelobj in root.findall('artikel'):    if artikel.get('nummer') == 121:        print artikelobj.find('code')

this will print only the code you want.

You can use lxml package using XPath Expression.

from lxml import etreef = open("8_1.html", "r")tree = etree.parse(f)expression = "/artikelen/artikel[1]/code"l = tree.xpath(expression)code = next(i.text for i in l)print code# ABC123

The thing to notice here is the expression. /artikelen is the root element. /artikel[1] chooses the first artikel element under root(Notice first element is not at index 0). /code is the child element under artikel[1]. You can read more about at lxml and xpath syntax.