parsing xml

[shanenin]

I feel like kind of dumb. I have been reading python docs all day, and feel like I have not absorbed anything. I would like to parse info out of an xml document. here is a url to a sample doc
http://freetalklive.com/netcast.xml

lets say I want to parse out the urls of the mp3s, and aslo the descriptions of the shows. I have been reading about xml.sax, xml.com.minicom. They both seem like they may have the tools to do what I want, but am kind of lost. I also have been trying to use regular string methods to do it.

Any suggestions, or a good tutroial with the beginner in mind would be appreciated

[shanenin]

I have found some ways to do this, both with feedparser.py, and cElementTree.py .

I would greatly appreciate any examples to how to do this with xml.sax. The xml.sax docs just plain dumbfouned me, it would be nice to make some sence out of them.

[shanenin]

the feedparser module is so nice and easy to use. It is specifically designed to parse rss xml files. below is the script I wrote that downloads the mp3 files and and makes a text file which contains the mp3 file description. It stores each mp3 and description file in the same directory

here is the link to feedparser
http://feedparser.org/

#!/usr/bin/env python
#
# this program downloads mp3 files and description based on the rss feed file(xml)
#
import sys, feedparser, os, urllib

# this code allows the program to take a command argument(the location of the xml file)
rss_file = sys.argv[1]
feed_obj = feedparser.parse(rss_file)

# this function parses the rss file and places all of the info that it returns as a list
# this list contains tuples continaing the info of each item: title, link, description
def parse_rss(v_feed_obj):

    rss_info = []
    for i in range(len(feed_obj.entries)):
        title = name_cleaner(feed_obj.entries[i].title)
        link = feed_obj.entries[i].link
        description = feed_obj.entries[i].description
        rss_info.append((title, link, description))
    return rss_info
    

# this module removes the symbol "/" and replaces it with "-" from directory names and 
# files, replaces spaces with underscores and also makes all files or directorys lowercase
def name_cleaner(cleanfile):
    
    newfile = cleanfile.replace('/','-')
    newfile = newfile.replace(' ','_')
    newfile = newfile.lower()
    return newfile

# this is obviously the main function
def main():
    
    rss_info = parse_rss(feed_obj)
    for i in rss_info:
        os.mkdir(i[0], 0775)
        argument1 = i[1]
        argument2 = "%s/%s.mp3" %(i[0], i[0])
        urllib.urlretrieve(argument1, argument2)
        output_file = "%s/INFO" %i[0]
        text_file = open(output_file, 'w')
        text_file.write(i[2]+"\n")
        text_file.close()

main()

[datulaida]

how to integrate apple pie parser with python?
Any suggestions, or a good tutroial to parsed text in mind would be appreciated..

[vegaseat]

Please start a new thread! Hijacking old threads is kind of rude.