Is there a way, when I parse an XML document using lxml, to validate that document against its DTD using an external catalog file? I need to be able to work the fixed attributes defined in a document’s DTD.
A:
Can you give an example? According to the lxml validation docs, lxml can handle DTD validation (specified in the XML doc or externally in code) and system catalogs, which covers most cases I can think of.
f = StringIO("<!ELEMENT b EMPTY>")
dtd = etree.DTD(f)
dtd = etree.DTD(external_id = "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN")
Michael Twomey
2008-08-16 07:57:53
+1
A:
It seems that lxml does not expose this libxml2 feature, grepping the source only turns up some #defines for the error handling:
C:\Dev>grep -ir --include=*.px[id] catalog lxml-2.1.1/src | sed -r "s/\s+/ /g"
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/dtd.pxi: catalog.
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxd: XML_FROM_CATALOG = 20 # The Catalog module
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxd: XML_WAR_CATALOG_PI = 93 # 93
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxd: XML_CATALOG_MISSING_ATTR = 1650
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxd: XML_CATALOG_ENTRY_BROKEN = 1651 # 1651
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxd: XML_CATALOG_PREFER_VALUE = 1652 # 1652
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxd: XML_CATALOG_NOT_CATALOG = 1653 # 1653
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxd: XML_CATALOG_RECURSION = 1654 # 1654
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxi:CATALOG=20
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxi:WAR_CATALOG_PI=93
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxi:CATALOG_MISSING_ATTR=1650
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxi:CATALOG_ENTRY_BROKEN=1651
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxi:CATALOG_PREFER_VALUE=1652
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxi:CATALOG_NOT_CATALOG=1653
lxml-2.1.1/src/lxml/xmlerror.pxi:CATALOG_RECURSION=1654
From the catalog implementation in libxml2 page it seems possible that the 'transparent' handling through installation in /etc/xml/catalog may still work in lxml, but if you need more than that you can always abandon lxml and use the default python bindings, which do expose the catalog functions.
gz
2008-08-30 18:10:33