Merge xml files with nested elements without external libraries

Question

I am trying to merge multiple XML files together using Python and no external libraries. The XML files have nested elements.

Sample File 1:

Answer 1

Thank you, but my problem was to merge by considering the attributes also. here is the code after my patch:

    import sys
    from xml.etree import ElementTree as et


    class hashabledict(dict):
        def __hash__(self):
            return hash(tuple(sorted(self.items())))


    class XMLCombiner(object):
        def __init__(self, filenames):
            assert len(filenames) > 0, 'No filenames!'
            # save all the roots, in order, to be processed later
            self.roots = [et.parse(f).getroot() for f in filenames]

    def combine(self):
        for r in self.roots[1:]:
            # combine each element with the first one, and update that
            self.combine_element(self.roots[0], r)
        # return the string representation
        return et.ElementTree(self.roots[0])

    def combine_element(self, one, other):
        """
        This function recursively updates either the text or the children
        of an element if another element is found in `one`, or adds it
        from `other` if not found.
        """
        # Create a mapping from tag name to element, as that's what we are fltering with
        mapping = {(el.tag, hashabledict(el.attrib)): el for el in one}
        for el in other:
            if len(el) == 0:
                # Not nested
                try:
                    # Update the text
                    mapping[(el.tag, hashabledict(el.attrib))].text = el.text
                except KeyError:
                    # An element with this name is not in the mapping
                    mapping[(el.tag, hashabledict(el.attrib))] = el
                    # Add it
                    one.append(el)
            else:
                try:
                    # Recursively process the element, and update it in the same way
                    self.combine_element(mapping[(el.tag, hashabledict(el.attrib))], el)
                except KeyError:
                    # Not in the mapping
                    mapping[(el.tag, hashabledict(el.attrib))] = el
                    # Just add it
                    one.append(el)

if __name__ == '__main__':

    r = XMLCombiner(sys.argv[1:-1]).combine()
    print '-'*20
    print et.tostring(r.getroot())
    r.write(sys.argv[-1], encoding="iso-8859-1", xml_declaration=True)