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Daniel Veillard8f40f1e2002-08-28 21:18:45 +000019<a href="http://www.gnome.org/"><img src="gnome2.png" alt="Gnome2 Logo"></a><a href="http://www.w3.org/Status"><img src="w3c.png" alt="W3C Logo"></a><a href="http://www.redhat.com/"><img src="redhat.gif" alt="Red Hat Logo"></a><div align="left"><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/"><img src="Libxml2-Logo-180x168.gif" alt="Made with Libxml2 Logo"></a></div>
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22<h1>The XML C library for Gnome</h1>
23<h2>Python and bindings</h2>
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82<tr><td colspan="1" bgcolor="#eecfa1" align="center"><center><b>Related links</b></center></td></tr>
83<tr><td bgcolor="#fffacd"><ul>
84<li><a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/">Mail archive</a></li>
85<li><a href="http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/">XSLT libxslt</a></li>
86<li><a href="http://phd.cs.unibo.it/gdome2/">DOM gdome2</a></li>
Daniel Veillard2d347fa2002-03-17 10:34:11 +000087<li><a href="http://www.aleksey.com/xmlsec/">XML-DSig xmlsec</a></li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +000088<li><a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/">FTP</a></li>
Daniel Veillardc84f8b52002-12-19 22:12:47 +000089<li><a href="http://www.zlatkovic.com/projects/libxml/">Windows binaries</a></li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +000090<li><a href="http://garypennington.net/libxml2/">Solaris binaries</a></li>
Daniel Veillardcb7543b2002-09-09 10:54:06 +000091<li><a href="http://www.zveno.com/open_source/libxml2xslt.html">MacOsX binaries</a></li>
Daniel Veillarde6d8e202002-05-02 06:11:10 +000092<li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/libxml2-pas/">Pascal bindings</a></li>
Daniel Veillard2d347fa2002-03-17 10:34:11 +000093<li><a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=libxml&amp;product=libxml2">Bug Tracker</a></li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +000094</ul></td></tr>
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Daniel Veillard42766c02002-08-22 20:52:17 +000098<p>There are a number of language bindings and wrappers available for
99libxml2, the list below is not exhaustive. Please contact the <a href="http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/xml-bindings">xml-bindings@gnome.org</a>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000100(<a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml-bindings/">archives</a>) in
101order to get updates to this list or to discuss the specific topic of libxml2
102or libxslt wrappers or bindings:</p>
103<ul>
104<li>
Daniel Veillardc14401e2002-11-20 14:28:17 +0000105<a href="http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/">Libxml++</a> seems the
106 most up-to-date C++ bindings for libxml2, check the <a href="http://libxmlplusplus.sourceforge.net/reference/html/hierarchy.html">documentation</a>
107 and the <a href="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/libxmlplusplus/libxml%2b%2b/examples/">examples</a>.</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000108 <li>There is another <a href="http://libgdome-cpp.berlios.de/">C++ wrapper
109 based on the gdome2 bindings</a> maintained by Tobias Peters.</li>
110 <li>and a third C++ wrapper by Peter Jones &lt;pjones@pmade.org&gt;
Daniel Veillard9b6fd302002-05-13 12:06:47 +0000111 <p>Website: <a href="http://pmade.org/pjones/software/xmlwrapp/">http://pmade.org/pjones/software/xmlwrapp/</a>
112</p>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000113 </li>
114 <li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000115<a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/2001-March/msg00014.html">Matt
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000116 Sergeant</a> developed <a href="http://axkit.org/download/">XML::LibXSLT</a>, a Perl wrapper for
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000117 libxml2/libxslt as part of the <a href="http://axkit.com/">AxKit XML
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000118 application server</a>.</li>
119 <li>
Daniel Veillard21473672002-06-17 07:29:22 +0000120<a href="mailto:dkuhlman@cutter.rexx.com">Dave Kuhlman</a> provides an
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000121 earlier version of the libxml/libxslt <a href="http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman">wrappers for Python</a>.</li>
122 <li>Gopal.V and Peter Minten develop <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/libxmlsharp">libxml#</a>, a set of
123 C# libxml2 bindings.</li>
124 <li>Petr Kozelka provides <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/libxml2-pas">Pascal units to glue
125 libxml2</a> with Kylix, Delphi and other Pascal compilers.</li>
126 <li>Uwe Fechner also provides <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/idom2-pas/">idom2</a>, a DOM2
127 implementation for Kylix2/D5/D6 from Borland.</li>
128 <li>Wai-Sun &quot;Squidster&quot; Chia provides <a href="http://www.rubycolor.org/arc/redist/">bindings for Ruby</a> and
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000129 libxml2 bindings are also available in Ruby through the <a href="http://libgdome-ruby.berlios.de/">libgdome-ruby</a> module
130 maintained by Tobias Peters.</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000131 <li>Steve Ball and contributors maintains <a href="http://tclxml.sourceforge.net/">libxml2 and libxslt bindings for
132 Tcl</a>.</li>
133 <li>There is support for libxml2 in the DOM module of PHP.</li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000134</ul>
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +0000135<p>The distribution includes a set of Python bindings, which are guaranteed
136to be maintained as part of the library in the future, though the Python
Daniel Veillard0b79dfe2002-02-23 13:02:31 +0000137interface have not yet reached the maturity of the C API.</p>
Daniel Veillard27907c72002-12-16 16:05:58 +0000138<p>
139<a href="mailto:stephane.bidoul@softwareag.com">Stéphane Bidoul</a>
Daniel Veillard7b4b2f92003-01-06 13:11:20 +0000140maintains <a href="http://users.skynet.be/sbi/libxml-python/">a Windows port
141of the Python bindings</a>.</p>
Daniel Veillard7ef0fcb2002-12-14 10:38:55 +0000142<p>Note to people interested in building bindings, the API is formalized as
143<a href="libxml2-api.xml">an XML API description file</a> which allows to
144automate a large part of the Python bindings, this includes function
Daniel Veillard7b4b2f92003-01-06 13:11:20 +0000145descriptions, enums, structures, typedefs, etc... The Python script used to
146build the bindings is python/generator.py in the source distribution.</p>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000147<p>To install the Python bindings there are 2 options:</p>
Daniel Veillard0b79dfe2002-02-23 13:02:31 +0000148<ul>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000149<li>If you use an RPM based distribution, simply install the <a href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=libxml2-python">libxml2-python
150 RPM</a> (and if needed the <a href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=libxslt-python">libxslt-python
151 RPM</a>).</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000152 <li>Otherwise use the <a href="ftp://xmlsoft.org/python/">libxml2-python
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000153 module distribution</a> corresponding to your installed version of
154 libxml2 and libxslt. Note that to install it you will need both libxml2
155 and libxslt installed and run &quot;python setup.py build install&quot; in the
156 module tree.</li>
Daniel Veillard0b79dfe2002-02-23 13:02:31 +0000157</ul>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000158<p>The distribution includes a set of examples and regression tests for the
159python bindings in the <code>python/tests</code> directory. Here are some
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000160excerpts from those tests:</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000161<h3>tst.py:</h3>
162<p>This is a basic test of the file interface and DOM navigation:</p>
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000163<pre>import libxml2
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000164
165doc = libxml2.parseFile(&quot;tst.xml&quot;)
166if doc.name != &quot;tst.xml&quot;:
167 print &quot;doc.name failed&quot;
168 sys.exit(1)
169root = doc.children
170if root.name != &quot;doc&quot;:
171 print &quot;root.name failed&quot;
172 sys.exit(1)
173child = root.children
174if child.name != &quot;foo&quot;:
175 print &quot;child.name failed&quot;
176 sys.exit(1)
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000177doc.freeDoc()</pre>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000178<p>The Python module is called libxml2; parseFile is the equivalent of
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000179xmlParseFile (most of the bindings are automatically generated, and the xml
180prefix is removed and the casing convention are kept). All node seen at the
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000181binding level share the same subset of accessors:</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000182<ul>
183<li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000184<code>name</code> : returns the node name</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000185 <li>
Daniel Veillardc0801af2002-05-28 16:28:42 +0000186<code>type</code> : returns a string indicating the node type</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000187 <li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000188<code>content</code> : returns the content of the node, it is based on
189 xmlNodeGetContent() and hence is recursive.</li>
Daniel Veillard0b28e882002-07-24 23:47:05 +0000190 <li>
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000191<code>parent</code> , <code>children</code>, <code>last</code>,
192 <code>next</code>, <code>prev</code>, <code>doc</code>,
193 <code>properties</code>: pointing to the associated element in the tree,
194 those may return None in case no such link exists.</li>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000195</ul>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000196<p>Also note the need to explicitly deallocate documents with freeDoc() .
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000197Reference counting for libxml2 trees would need quite a lot of work to
198function properly, and rather than risk memory leaks if not implemented
199correctly it sounds safer to have an explicit function to free a tree. The
200wrapper python objects like doc, root or child are them automatically garbage
201collected.</p>
202<h3>validate.py:</h3>
203<p>This test check the validation interfaces and redirection of error
204messages:</p>
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000205<pre>import libxml2
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000206
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000207#deactivate error messages from the validation
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000208def noerr(ctx, str):
209 pass
210
211libxml2.registerErrorHandler(noerr, None)
212
213ctxt = libxml2.createFileParserCtxt(&quot;invalid.xml&quot;)
214ctxt.validate(1)
215ctxt.parseDocument()
216doc = ctxt.doc()
217valid = ctxt.isValid()
218doc.freeDoc()
219if valid != 0:
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000220 print &quot;validity check failed&quot;</pre>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000221<p>The first thing to notice is the call to registerErrorHandler(), it
222defines a new error handler global to the library. It is used to avoid seeing
223the error messages when trying to validate the invalid document.</p>
224<p>The main interest of that test is the creation of a parser context with
225createFileParserCtxt() and how the behaviour can be changed before calling
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000226parseDocument() . Similarly the informations resulting from the parsing phase
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000227are also available using context methods.</p>
228<p>Contexts like nodes are defined as class and the libxml2 wrappers maps the
229C function interfaces in terms of objects method as much as possible. The
230best to get a complete view of what methods are supported is to look at the
231libxml2.py module containing all the wrappers.</p>
232<h3>push.py:</h3>
233<p>This test show how to activate the push parser interface:</p>
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000234<pre>import libxml2
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000235
236ctxt = libxml2.createPushParser(None, &quot;&lt;foo&quot;, 4, &quot;test.xml&quot;)
237ctxt.parseChunk(&quot;/&gt;&quot;, 2, 1)
238doc = ctxt.doc()
239
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000240doc.freeDoc()</pre>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000241<p>The context is created with a special call based on the
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000242xmlCreatePushParser() from the C library. The first argument is an optional
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000243SAX callback object, then the initial set of data, the length and the name of
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000244the resource in case URI-References need to be computed by the parser.</p>
245<p>Then the data are pushed using the parseChunk() method, the last call
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000246setting the third argument terminate to 1.</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000247<h3>pushSAX.py:</h3>
248<p>this test show the use of the event based parsing interfaces. In this case
249the parser does not build a document, but provides callback information as
250the parser makes progresses analyzing the data being provided:</p>
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000251<pre>import libxml2
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000252log = &quot;&quot;
253
254class callback:
255 def startDocument(self):
256 global log
257 log = log + &quot;startDocument:&quot;
258
259 def endDocument(self):
260 global log
261 log = log + &quot;endDocument:&quot;
262
263 def startElement(self, tag, attrs):
264 global log
265 log = log + &quot;startElement %s %s:&quot; % (tag, attrs)
266
267 def endElement(self, tag):
268 global log
269 log = log + &quot;endElement %s:&quot; % (tag)
270
271 def characters(self, data):
272 global log
273 log = log + &quot;characters: %s:&quot; % (data)
274
275 def warning(self, msg):
276 global log
277 log = log + &quot;warning: %s:&quot; % (msg)
278
279 def error(self, msg):
280 global log
281 log = log + &quot;error: %s:&quot; % (msg)
282
283 def fatalError(self, msg):
284 global log
285 log = log + &quot;fatalError: %s:&quot; % (msg)
286
287handler = callback()
288
289ctxt = libxml2.createPushParser(handler, &quot;&lt;foo&quot;, 4, &quot;test.xml&quot;)
290chunk = &quot; url='tst'&gt;b&quot;
291ctxt.parseChunk(chunk, len(chunk), 0)
292chunk = &quot;ar&lt;/foo&gt;&quot;
293ctxt.parseChunk(chunk, len(chunk), 1)
294
Daniel Veillardfcbfa2d2002-02-21 17:54:27 +0000295reference = &quot;startDocument:startElement foo {'url': 'tst'}:&quot; + \
296 &quot;characters: bar:endElement foo:endDocument:&quot;
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000297if log != reference:
298 print &quot;Error got: %s&quot; % log
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000299 print &quot;Expected: %s&quot; % reference</pre>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000300<p>The key object in that test is the handler, it provides a number of entry
301points which can be called by the parser as it makes progresses to indicate
302the information set obtained. The full set of callback is larger than what
303the callback class in that specific example implements (see the SAX
304definition for a complete list). The wrapper will only call those supplied by
305the object when activated. The startElement receives the names of the element
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000306and a dictionary containing the attributes carried by this element.</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000307<p>Also note that the reference string generated from the callback shows a
308single character call even though the string &quot;bar&quot; is passed to the parser
309from 2 different call to parseChunk()</p>
310<h3>xpath.py:</h3>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000311<p>This is a basic test of XPath wrappers support</p>
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000312<pre>import libxml2
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000313
314doc = libxml2.parseFile(&quot;tst.xml&quot;)
315ctxt = doc.xpathNewContext()
316res = ctxt.xpathEval(&quot;//*&quot;)
317if len(res) != 2:
318 print &quot;xpath query: wrong node set size&quot;
319 sys.exit(1)
320if res[0].name != &quot;doc&quot; or res[1].name != &quot;foo&quot;:
321 print &quot;xpath query: wrong node set value&quot;
322 sys.exit(1)
323doc.freeDoc()
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000324ctxt.xpathFreeContext()</pre>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000325<p>This test parses a file, then create an XPath context to evaluate XPath
326expression on it. The xpathEval() method execute an XPath query and returns
327the result mapped in a Python way. String and numbers are natively converted,
328and node sets are returned as a tuple of libxml2 Python nodes wrappers. Like
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000329the document, the XPath context need to be freed explicitly, also not that
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000330the result of the XPath query may point back to the document tree and hence
331the document must be freed after the result of the query is used.</p>
332<h3>xpathext.py:</h3>
333<p>This test shows how to extend the XPath engine with functions written in
334python:</p>
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000335<pre>import libxml2
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000336
337def foo(ctx, x):
338 return x + 1
339
340doc = libxml2.parseFile(&quot;tst.xml&quot;)
341ctxt = doc.xpathNewContext()
342libxml2.registerXPathFunction(ctxt._o, &quot;foo&quot;, None, foo)
343res = ctxt.xpathEval(&quot;foo(1)&quot;)
344if res != 2:
345 print &quot;xpath extension failure&quot;
346doc.freeDoc()
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000347ctxt.xpathFreeContext()</pre>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000348<p>Note how the extension function is registered with the context (but that
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000349part is not yet finalized, this may change slightly in the future).</p>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000350<h3>tstxpath.py:</h3>
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000351<p>This test is similar to the previous one but shows how the extension
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000352function can access the XPath evaluation context:</p>
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000353<pre>def foo(ctx, x):
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000354 global called
355
356 #
357 # test that access to the XPath evaluation contexts
358 #
359 pctxt = libxml2.xpathParserContext(_obj=ctx)
360 ctxt = pctxt.context()
361 called = ctxt.function()
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000362 return x + 1</pre>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000363<p>All the interfaces around the XPath parser(or rather evaluation) context
364are not finalized, but it should be sufficient to do contextual work at the
365evaluation point.</p>
366<h3>Memory debugging:</h3>
367<p>last but not least, all tests starts with the following prologue:</p>
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000368<pre>#memory debug specific
Daniel Veillardaf43f632002-03-08 15:05:20 +0000369libxml2.debugMemory(1)</pre>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000370<p>and ends with the following epilogue:</p>
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000371<pre>#memory debug specific
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000372libxml2.cleanupParser()
373if libxml2.debugMemory(1) == 0:
374 print &quot;OK&quot;
375else:
376 print &quot;Memory leak %d bytes&quot; % (libxml2.debugMemory(1))
Daniel Veillard9eb146b2002-02-21 16:04:51 +0000377 libxml2.dumpMemory()</pre>
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000378<p>Those activate the memory debugging interface of libxml2 where all
Daniel Veillard63d83142002-05-20 06:51:05 +0000379allocated block in the library are tracked. The prologue then cleans up the
Daniel Veillard6dbcaf82002-02-20 14:37:47 +0000380library state and checks that all allocated memory has been freed. If not it
381calls dumpMemory() which saves that list in a <code>.memdump</code> file.</p>
382<p><a href="bugs.html">Daniel Veillard</a></p>
383</td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></td>
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