dicttoxml

1.7.16 · active · verified Sat Apr 11

dicttoxml is a Python library that converts a Python dictionary or other native data types (like lists, sets, tuples, integers, strings, booleans, and datetime objects) into a valid XML string. It supports arbitrary nesting for collections and offers options to control XML declaration, root element, and type attributes. The current version is 1.7.16, actively maintained to support Python 3.6 and forward versions.

Warnings

gotcha By default, `dicttoxml` includes a `type` attribute for each element (e.g., `<name type="str">`). This can lead to verbose XML if not desired.
Fix: Pass `attr_type=False` to the `dicttoxml` function: `dicttoxml(my_dict, attr_type=False)`.
gotcha The converted XML is wrapped in a `<root>` element by default, and includes an XML declaration (`<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>`).
Fix: To change the root element, use `custom_root='my_custom_tag'`. To generate an XML snippet without the root or declaration, pass `root=False` to `dicttoxml()`.
gotcha Element names that are not valid XML (e.g., contain spaces or special characters) are automatically converted. Spaces become underscores, and severely invalid names become `<key name="original-invalid-name">`.
Fix: Sanitize dictionary keys to be valid XML element names before conversion, or be aware of `dicttoxml`'s automatic handling.
gotcha The library enables verbose logging by default, which can clutter console output or log files with INFO-level messages for every conversion step.
Fix: Disable debugging output by calling `dicttoxml.set_debug(False)` or configure Python's `logging` module to suppress `dicttoxml`'s output.

Install

pip install dicttoxml Install stable version

Imports

dicttoxml
```
from dicttoxml import dicttoxml
```
dicttoxml module
```
import dicttoxml
```
While 'dicttoxml2' is a compatible fork, the user specifically requested 'dicttoxml'. Ensure you import the correct library you've installed.

Quickstart

This quickstart demonstrates how to convert a Python dictionary into an XML string using `dicttoxml` and then pretty-prints the output using `xml.dom.minidom` for readability.

from dicttoxml import dicttoxml
import xml.dom.minidom

my_dict = {
    'name': 'Alice',
    'age': 30,
    'is_student': False,
    'courses': [
        {'title': 'Math', 'credits': 3},
        {'title': 'Science', 'credits': 4}
    ],
    'address': {'street': '123 Main St', 'city': 'Anytown'}
}

# Convert dictionary to XML with default settings
xml_bytes = dicttoxml(my_dict)

# Pretty print the XML (optional)
dom = xml.dom.minidom.parseString(xml_bytes)
pretty_xml_string = dom.toprettyxml()

print(pretty_xml_string)

view raw JSON →