Python xml.etree.ElementTree directory acess

Question

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

ID="000296166"
tree = ET.parse("\folder" + ID +'.xml')
root = tree.getroot()

What I'm trying to do is access XML files that aren't in the same folder as the .py using the function from xml.etree.elementtree

It keeps giving the error:

IOError: [Errno 22] invalid mode ('rb') or filename: '\x0colder000296166.xml'

I keep getting the feeling that I did something wrong when writing the path...but I can't find any examples online to see how it's supposed to work

Answer 1

\f is interpreted as the page brake and is replaced with hex code 0xC. You should remove leading backslash from path.

tree = ET.parse("folder" + ID +'.xml')

And if you use backslash inside strings it can be escaped like this \\

EDIT

When you work with paths it is better to use os.path module:

 import os 
 ...
 tree = ET.parse(os.path.join('folder', ID + '.xml'))