How do I escape colons in an attribute name with Python's ElementTree?

Question

Background

I am using ElementTree in Python version 2.6 to create an XML file (using data retrieved from a database).

Code

The following line of code is the problem area, as I keep getting a syntax error because of the colons within my attribute names.

# Please ignore any errors the "^" characters would cause if they were
# actually part of my code - just using them as placeholders.

root = ET.Element("databaseConfiguration", xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance",
                                                ^
                  xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="database.xsd")
                     ^

Question

What is the most efficient way to escape the colons in these attribute names in order to have root equivalent to the following:

<databaseConfiguration xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="database.xsd"/>

Notes

I've looked at a few solutions on Stack Overflow (e.g. solution1, solution2, solution3 and solution4) where users were parsing an XML file, but I cannot seem to interpret these fixes as ones that would work for writing to an XML.

Thanks in advance!

Lezley

@VivekSable Haha thank you :) I'm a tad OCPD – Lezley

can u check >>> root = ET.Element("databaseConfiguration", {"xmlns:xsi":"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance", "xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation":"database.xsd"}) is working or not? – Aliform

@VivekSable Yes! That definitely worked. I was trying to use those curly brackets before but wasn't sure of the syntax. I'm not sure which implementation is better - this one or Daniel's? – Lezley

yes, I also do not no much about this. I read from the lxml.de/tutorial.html , can u look this site also? – Aliform

@VivekSable Thanks! I see what it's doing now. I still don't know what the asterisks in Daniel's answer are doing though. Oh well, they both seem to work – Lezley

Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Aliform

Answer 1

may be following will work for you. Read from the link

>>> root = ET.Element("databaseConfiguration", {"xmlns:xsi":"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance", "xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation":"database.xsd"})
>>> 

Aliform

Answer 2

Simply use a dictionary

root = ET.Element("databaseConfiguration", **{'xmlns:xsi':"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance",
               'xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation':"database.xsd"})

Pishogue

Hi Daniel, what is the difference between your answer and what Vivek suggested: >>>root = ET.Element("databaseConfiguration", {"xmlns:xsi":"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance", "xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation":"database.xsd"}) e.g. what do the extra asterisks do? – Lezley

The double asterisks expand the dictionary as key/value pair arguments for the function call. – Compline