Python Lxml (objectify): Checking whether a tag exists

Question

I need to check whether a certain tag exists in an xml file.

For example, I want to see if the tag exists in this snippet:

Answer 1

Edit: updated answer for sample file.

I'm assuming you want to search each asset for certain tags. If so, the following worked for me:

import lxml.objectify

# Parse the file.
tree = lxml.objectify.parse('sample.xml')
root = tree.getroot()

# Which elements to find.
to_find = set(['presence/faction', 'presence/value', 'fake'])

# Go through each asset in the document.
for asset in root.findall('asset'):
    # Check for each element. 
    for name in to_find:
        node = asset.find(name)
        if node is not None:
            print 'Found %s, its value is %s' % (name, node)
        else:
            print 'Unable to find %s' % name

The output was:

Found presence/value, its value is -1000.0
Found presence/faction, its value is Dvaered
Unable to find fake
Found presence/value, its value is 100.0
Found presence/faction, its value is Empire
Unable to find fake