Pretty printing XML in Python

Question

What is the best way (or are the various ways) to pretty print XML in Python?

Answer 1

Use etree.indent and etree.tostring

import lxml.etree as etree

root = etree.fromstring('
Welcome
')
etree.indent(root, space="  ")
xml_string = etree.tostring(root, pretty_print=True).decode()
print(xml_string)

output

  
  
    
Welcome
  

---

Removing namespaces and prefixes

import lxml.etree as etree


def dump_xml(element):
    for item in element.getiterator():
        item.tag = etree.QName(item).localname

    etree.cleanup_namespaces(element)
    etree.indent(element, space="  ")
    result = etree.tostring(element, pretty_print=True).decode()
    return result


root = etree.fromstring('hello world')
xml_string = dump_xml(root)
print(xml_string)

output

  hello world