Class ElementBase

object --+    
         |    
  _Element --+
             |
            ElementBase

Known Subclasses:

• html.HtmlElement
• , objectify.ObjectifiedElement
• , tests.test_nsclasses.ETreeNamespaceClassesTestCase.bluff_class
• , tests.test_nsclasses.ETreeNamespaceClassesTestCase.default_class
• , tests.test_nsclasses.ETreeNamespaceClassesTestCase.maeh_class

ElementBase(*children, attrib=None, nsmap=None, **_extra)

The public Element class. All custom Element classes must inherit from this one. To create an Element, use the Element() factory.

BIG FAT WARNING: Subclasses must not override __init__ or __new__ as it is absolutely undefined when these objects will be created or destroyed. All persistent state of Elements must be stored in the underlying XML. If you really need to initialize the object after creation, you can implement an _init(self) method that will be called directly after object creation.

Subclasses of this class can be instantiated to create a new Element. By default, the tag name will be the class name and the namespace will be empty. You can modify this with the following class attributes:

• TAG - the tag name, possibly containing a namespace in Clark notation
• NAMESPACE - the default namespace URI, unless provided as part of the TAG attribute.
• HTML - flag if the class is an HTML tag, as opposed to an XML tag. This only applies to un-namespaced tags and defaults to false (i.e. XML).
• PARSER - the parser that provides the configuration for the newly created document. Providing an HTML parser here will default to creating an HTML element.

In user code, the latter three are commonly inherited in class hierarchies that implement a common namespace.