Parsing special characters from xml in python

Question

for values. Can anyone please tell me to parse value "<" using minidom.parse in python.

 <Value>"&lt;"</Value> </Root>

i send a request xml with "<" character for which i get response xml as above. Now i want to extract the "<" character for matching with those sent in request xml. — user3087993
– user3087993, Commented Dec 11, 2013 at 4:49
Not sure if it got lost in the edit or not, but </ResourceRecordSets> was also missing from the 2nd to last line of your XML. Again, ensure you're working with valid XML before trying to parse. — brandonscript
– brandonscript, Commented Dec 11, 2013 at 4:57
you could try regex-based solution to convert your xml-like input into xml to be parsed by minidom later. — jfs
– jfs, Commented Dec 11, 2013 at 5:07

score 2 · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-11 04:55:01Z

2

Thats not valid XML, " and < are a special characters in XML and can't be included in a document like that.

Fix your XML by escaping the " and < symbols and minidom will work as expected.

For example:

<Value>&quot;&lt;&quot;</Value>

or:

<Value><![CDATA["<"]]></Value>

edited Dec 11, 2013 at 4:55

answered Dec 11, 2013 at 4:49

user764357

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3 Comments

brandonscript Over a year ago

For OP: There are several online xml validators/formatter available to you as well to check your source for errors. An example of one: freeformatter.com/xml-formatter.html

user3087993 Over a year ago

The code is modified in such a way that it takes < inside quotes "" and updates to sqlserver as "<". Now when response is received the value("<") is present as such in response xml. So i need to parse whole value("<") for a further match.

user764357 Over a year ago

@user3087993 You can't. That is not XML. If you have a < character in your text file thats not part of an element, by definition *it isn't XML as it isn't conforming to the XML spec. Fix your XML. The problem isn't your code, its your XML. Can I make that clearer?

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