XML parser-writer that keeps Attributes order.

Question

I need to parse XML document and then write every node to separate files keeping exact order of attributes. So if i have input file like :

<item a="a" b="b" c="c"/>
<item a="a1" b="b2" c="c3"/>

Output should be 2 files with every item. Now if xml.dom.minidom is used - attribute order is changed in output( i can get - <item b="b" c="c" **a="a"**/>)

I found pxdom lib, it keeps order but very-very slow( minidom parsing takes 0.08 sec., pxdom parsing takes 2,5 sec.)

Is there any other python libraries that can keep attributes?

UPD: libarry should also keep upper and lower cases. So "Item" is not equal to "item"

Answer 1

You can use BeautifulSoup:

>>> from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup as soup

>>> html = '''<item a="a" b="b" c="c"/>
<item a="a1" b="b2" c="c3"/>'''
>>> s = soup(html)
>>> s.findAll('item')
[<item a="a" b="b" c="c"></item>, <item a="a1" b="b2" c="c3"></item>]

Answer 2

You might find this question useful. Bottom line summary-- standard xml tools and libraries most likely won't be able to do this.