Modify XML using Python minidom

Question

Here is a sample XML file:

<Project attri1="build">
    <Import Project="blahblah" xmlns="someURI" />
    <Property>
        ...
    </Property>
    <Property>
        ...
    </Property>
    ...
    <ItemGroup>
        <Folder Include="Scripts" />
        <Folder Include="Scripts/1.0" />
        <Folder Include="Scripts/2.0/" />
        ...
    </ItemGroup>
      ... some irrelevant ItemGroup is here
    <ItemGroup>
         <None Include="Scripts/1.0/001.sql" />
         <None Include="Scripts/2.0/002.sql" />
    </ItemGroup>
    ...
</Project>

The above XML file is based on the template of Visual Studio's sqlproj file. It is distinguished based on what kind of nodes are inside.

---

My research:

import xml.dom.minidom
sql = xml.dom.minidom.parse('file.sqlproj')
itemGroup = sql.getElementsByTagName('ItemGroup')
folderGroup = itemGroup[0] # The first ItemGroup has folders
sqlGroup = itemGroup[2] # The 3rd ItemGroup has sql file list.

I want to add <Folder Include="newpath" /> and <Folder Include="newsql" /> into appropriate ItemGroup using Python's xml.dom.minidom library, and eventually override the original sqlproj file.

How to do that?

If you suggest other built-in libraries, please give an example, thanks.

Answer 1

You didn't tell enough info on how to distinguish ItemGroups between each other, but I'm assuming it is based on what kind of nodes are inside.

Here's how you can insert new Folder tags into the ItemGroup of Folders and Nones. The idea is to find the first Folder and None tags, get the parent and appendChild to it:

import xml.dom.minidom

data = """<Project attri1="build">
    <Import Project="blahblah" xmlns="someURI" />
    <ItemGroup>
        <Folder Include="Scripts" />
        <Folder Include="Scripts/1.0" />
        <Folder Include="Scripts/2.0/" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <ItemGroup/>
    <ItemGroup>
         <None Include="Scripts/1.0/001.sql" />
         <None Include="Scripts/2.0/002.sql" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>"""

dom = xml.dom.minidom.parseString(data)

new_folder = dom.createElement('Folder')
new_folder.setAttribute('Include', 'newpath')

folder = dom.getElementsByTagName('Folder')[0]
folder.parentNode.appendChild(new_folder)

new_script = dom.createElement('Folder')
new_script.setAttribute('Include', 'newsql')

none = dom.getElementsByTagName('None')[0]
none.parentNode.appendChild(new_script)

print dom.toprettyxml()

It prints:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<Project attri1="build">
    <Import Project="blahblah" xmlns="someURI"/>
    <ItemGroup>
        <Folder Include="Scripts"/>
        <Folder Include="Scripts/1.0"/>
        <Folder Include="Scripts/2.0/"/>
        <Folder Include="newpath"/>
    </ItemGroup>
    <ItemGroup/>
    <ItemGroup>
        <None Include="Scripts/1.0/001.sql"/>
        <None Include="Scripts/2.0/002.sql"/>
        <Folder Include="newsql"/>
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>