Package lxml :: Module builder :: Class ElementMaker

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# Class ElementMaker

source code

    object --+
             |
            ElementMaker

Element generator factory.

Unlike the ordinary Element factory, the E factory allows you to pass in more than just a tag and some optional attributes; you can also pass in text and other elements. The text is added as either text or tail attributes, and elements are inserted at the right spot. Some small examples:

       >>> from lxml import etree as ET
       >>> from lxml.builder import E

       >>> ET.tostring(E("tag"))
       '<tag/>'
       >>> ET.tostring(E("tag", "text"))
       '<tag>text</tag>'
       >>> ET.tostring(E("tag", "text", key="value"))
       '<tag key="value">text</tag>'
       >>> ET.tostring(E("tag", E("subtag", "text"), "tail"))
       '<tag><subtag>text</subtag>tail</tag>'

For simple tags, the factory also allows you to write ``E.tag(...)`` instead of ``E('tag', ...)``:

       >>> ET.tostring(E.tag())
       '<tag/>'
       >>> ET.tostring(E.tag("text"))
       '<tag>text</tag>'
       >>> ET.tostring(E.tag(E.subtag("text"), "tail"))
       '<tag><subtag>text</subtag>tail</tag>'

Here's a somewhat larger example; this shows how to generate HTML documents, using a mix of prepared factory functions for inline elements, nested ``E.tag`` calls, and embedded XHTML fragments:

       # some common inline elements
       A = E.a
       I = E.i
       B = E.b

       def CLASS(v):
           # helper function, 'class' is a reserved word
           return {'class': v}

       page = (
           E.html(
               E.head(
                   E.title("This is a sample document")
               ),
               E.body(
                   E.h1("Hello!", CLASS("title")),
                   E.p("This is a paragraph with ", B("bold"), " text in it!"),
                   E.p("This is another paragraph, with a ",
                       A("link", href="http://www.python.org"), "."),
                   E.p("Here are some reservered characters: <spam&egg>."),
                   ET.XML("<p>And finally, here is an embedded XHTML fragment.</p>"),
               )
           )
       )

       print ET.tostring(page)

Here's a prettyprinted version of the output from the above script:

       <html>
         <head>
           <title>This is a sample document</title>
         </head>
         <body>
           <h1 class="title">Hello!</h1>
           <p>This is a paragraph with <b>bold</b> text in it!</p>
           <p>This is another paragraph, with <a href="http://www.python.org">link</a>.</p>
           <p>Here are some reservered characters: &lt;spam&amp;egg&gt;.</p>
           <p>And finally, here is an embedded XHTML fragment.</p>
         </body>
       </html>

Instance Methods | [hide private]

__init__(self, typemap=None, namespace=None, nsmap=None, makeelement=None) x.__init__(...) initializes x; see x.__class__.__doc__ for signature | source code

__call__(self, tag, *children, **attrib) | source code

__getattr__(self, tag) | source code

Inherited from `object`: `__delattr__`, `__getattribute__`, `__hash__`, `__new__`, `__reduce__`, `__reduce_ex__`, `__repr__`, `__setattr__`, `__str__`

Properties | [hide private]

Inherited from `object`: `__class__`

Method Details | [hide private]

### __init__(self, typemap=None, namespace=None, nsmap=None, makeelement=None)
(Constructor)

source code

x.__init__(...) initializes x; see x.__class__.__doc__ for signature

Overrides: object.__init__
  (inherited documentation)