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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <meta name="generator" content="Docutils 0.4.1: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/" /> <title>How to read the source of lxml</title> <meta name="author" content="Stefan Behnel" /> <meta content="How to read and work on the source code of lxml" name="description" /> <meta content="lxml, XML, Cython, source code, develop, comprehend, understand" name="keywords" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div class="document" id="how-to-read-the-source-of-lxml"> <div class="sidemenu"><ul id="lxml"><li><span class="section title">lxml</span><ul class="menu foreign" id="index"><li class="menu title"><a href="index.html">lxml</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="index.html#introduction">Introduction</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="index.html#documentation">Documentation</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="index.html#download">Download</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="index.html#mailing-list">Mailing list</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="index.html#bug-tracker">Bug tracker</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="index.html#license">License</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="index.html#old-versions">Old Versions</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="intro"><li class="menu title"><a href="intro.html">Why lxml?</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="intro.html#motto">Motto</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="intro.html#aims">Aims</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="installation"><li class="menu title"><a href="installation.html">Installing lxml</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="installation.html#requirements">Requirements</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="installation.html#installation">Installation</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="installation.html#building-lxml-from-sources">Building lxml from sources</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="installation.html#ms-windows">MS Windows</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="installation.html#macos-x">MacOS-X</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="lxml2"><li class="menu title"><a href="lxml2.html">What's new in lxml 2.0?</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml2.html#changes-in-etree-and-objectify">Changes in etree and objectify</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml2.html#new-modules">New modules</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="performance"><li class="menu title"><a href="performance.html">Benchmarks and Speed</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="performance.html#general-notes">General notes</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="performance.html#how-to-read-the-timings">How to read the timings</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="performance.html#parsing-and-serialising">Parsing and Serialising</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="performance.html#the-elementtree-api">The ElementTree API</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="performance.html#xpath">XPath</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="performance.html#a-longer-example">A longer example</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="performance.html#lxml-objectify">lxml.objectify</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="compatibility"><li class="menu title"><a href="compatibility.html">ElementTree compatibility of lxml.etree</a></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="FAQ"><li class="menu title"><a href="FAQ.html">lxml FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="FAQ.html#general-questions">General Questions</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="FAQ.html#installation">Installation</a></li><li class="menu item"><a 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href="tutorial.html#namespaces">Namespaces</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="tutorial.html#the-e-factory">The E-factory</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="tutorial.html#elementpath">ElementPath</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="api index"><li class="menu title"><a href="api/index.html">API reference</a></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="api"><li class="menu title"><a href="api.html">APIs specific to lxml.etree</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="api.html#lxml-etree">lxml.etree</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="api.html#other-element-apis">Other Element APIs</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="api.html#trees-and-documents">Trees and Documents</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="api.html#iteration">Iteration</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="api.html#error-handling-on-exceptions">Error handling on exceptions</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="api.html#error-logging">Error logging</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="api.html#serialisation">Serialisation</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="api.html#xinclude-and-elementinclude">XInclude and ElementInclude</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="api.html#write-c14n-on-elementtree">write_c14n on ElementTree</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="parsing"><li class="menu title"><a href="parsing.html">Parsing XML and HTML with lxml</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="parsing.html#parsers">Parsers</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="parsing.html#the-target-parser-interface">The target parser interface</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="parsing.html#the-feed-parser-interface">The feed parser interface</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="parsing.html#iterparse-and-iterwalk">iterparse and iterwalk</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="parsing.html#python-unicode-strings">Python unicode strings</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="validation"><li class="menu title"><a href="validation.html">Validation with lxml</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="validation.html#validation-at-parse-time">Validation at parse time</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="validation.html#dtd">DTD</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="validation.html#relaxng">RelaxNG</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="validation.html#xmlschema">XMLSchema</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="validation.html#schematron">Schematron</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="xpathxslt"><li class="menu title"><a href="xpathxslt.html">XPath and XSLT with lxml</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="xpathxslt.html#xpath">XPath</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="xpathxslt.html#xslt">XSLT</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="objectify"><li class="menu title"><a href="objectify.html">lxml.objectify</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="objectify.html#the-lxml-objectify-api">The lxml.objectify API</a></li><li 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E-factory</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxmlhtml.html#working-with-links">Working with links</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxmlhtml.html#forms">Forms</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxmlhtml.html#cleaning-up-html">Cleaning up HTML</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxmlhtml.html#html-diff">HTML Diff</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxmlhtml.html#examples">Examples</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="cssselect"><li class="menu title"><a href="cssselect.html">lxml.cssselect</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="cssselect.html#the-cssselector-class">The CSSSelector class</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="cssselect.html#css-selectors">CSS Selectors</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="cssselect.html#limitations">Limitations</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="elementsoup"><li class="menu title"><a href="elementsoup.html">BeautifulSoup Parser</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="elementsoup.html#entity-handling">Entity handling</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="elementsoup.html#using-soupparser-as-a-fallback">Using soupparser as a fallback</a></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul><ul id="Extending lxml"><li><span class="section title">Extending lxml</span><ul class="menu foreign" id="resolvers"><li class="menu title"><a href="resolvers.html">Document loading and URL resolving</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="resolvers.html#resolvers">Resolvers</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="resolvers.html#document-loading-in-context">Document loading in context</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="resolvers.html#i-o-access-control-in-xslt">I/O access control in XSLT</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="extensions"><li class="menu title"><a href="extensions.html">Extension functions for XPath and XSLT</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="extensions.html#the-functionnamespace">The FunctionNamespace</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="extensions.html#global-prefix-assignment">Global prefix assignment</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="extensions.html#the-xpath-context">The XPath context</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="extensions.html#evaluators-and-xslt">Evaluators and XSLT</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="extensions.html#evaluator-local-extensions">Evaluator-local extensions</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="extensions.html#what-to-return-from-a-function">What to return from a function</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="element classes"><li class="menu title"><a href="element_classes.html">Using custom Element classes in lxml</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="element_classes.html#element-initialization">Element initialization</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="element_classes.html#setting-up-a-class-lookup-scheme">Setting up a class lookup scheme</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="element_classes.html#implementing-namespaces">Implementing namespaces</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="sax"><li class="menu title"><a href="sax.html">Sax support</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="sax.html#building-a-tree-from-sax-events">Building a tree from SAX events</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="sax.html#producing-sax-events-from-an-elementtree-or-element">Producing SAX events from an ElementTree or Element</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="sax.html#interfacing-with-pulldom-minidom">Interfacing with pulldom/minidom</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="capi"><li class="menu title"><a href="capi.html">The public C-API of lxml.etree</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="capi.html#writing-external-modules-in-cython">Writing external modules in Cython</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="capi.html#writing-external-modules-in-c">Writing external modules in C</a></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul><ul id="Developing lxml"><li><span class="section title">Developing lxml</span><ul class="menu foreign" id="build"><li class="menu title"><a href="build.html">How to build lxml from source</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="build.html#cython">Cython</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="build.html#subversion">Subversion</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="build.html#setuptools">Setuptools</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="build.html#running-the-tests-and-reporting-errors">Running the tests and reporting errors</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="build.html#contributing-an-egg">Contributing an egg</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="build.html#providing-newer-library-versions-on-mac-os-x">Providing newer library versions on Mac-OS X</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="build.html#static-linking-on-windows">Static linking on Windows</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="build.html#building-debian-packages-from-svn-sources">Building Debian packages from SVN sources</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu current" id="lxml source howto"><li class="menu title"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html">How to read the source of lxml</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#what-is-cython?">What is Cython?</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#where-to-start?">Where to start?</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#lxml-etree">lxml.etree</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#python-modules">Python modules</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#lxml-objectify">lxml.objectify</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#lxml-pyclasslookup">lxml.pyclasslookup</a></li><li class="menu item"><a href="lxml-source-howto.html#lxml-html">lxml.html</a></li></ul></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="changes 2 0 11"><li class="menu title"><a href="changes-2.0.11.html">Release Changelog</a></li></ul><ul class="menu foreign" id="credits"><li class="menu title"><a href="credits.html">Credits</a><ul class="submenu"><li class="menu item"><a href="credits.html#special-thanks-goes-to:">Special thanks goes to:</a></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></div><h1 class="title">How to read the source of lxml</h1> <table class="docinfo" frame="void" rules="none"> <col class="docinfo-name" /> <col class="docinfo-content" /> <tbody valign="top"> <tr><th class="docinfo-name">Author:</th> <td>Stefan Behnel</td></tr> </tbody> </table> <p>This document describes how to read the source code of <a class="reference" href="http://codespeak.net/lxml">lxml</a> and how to start working on it. You might also be interested in the companion document that describes <a class="reference" href="build.html">how to build lxml from sources</a>.</p> <div class="contents topic"> <p class="topic-title first"><a id="contents" name="contents">Contents</a></p> <ul class="simple"> <li><a class="reference" href="#what-is-cython" id="id1" name="id1">What is Cython?</a></li> <li><a class="reference" href="#where-to-start" id="id2" name="id2">Where to start?</a><ul> <li><a class="reference" href="#concepts" id="id3" name="id3">Concepts</a></li> <li><a class="reference" href="#the-documentation" id="id4" name="id4">The documentation</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a class="reference" href="#lxml-etree" id="id5" name="id5">lxml.etree</a></li> <li><a class="reference" href="#python-modules" id="id6" name="id6">Python modules</a></li> <li><a class="reference" href="#lxml-objectify" id="id7" name="id7">lxml.objectify</a></li> <li><a class="reference" href="#lxml-pyclasslookup" id="id8" name="id8">lxml.pyclasslookup</a></li> <li><a class="reference" href="#lxml-html" id="id9" name="id9">lxml.html</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="section"> <h1><a id="what-is-cython" name="what-is-cython">What is Cython?</a></h1> <p><a class="reference" href="http://cython.org/">Cython</a> is the language that lxml is written in. It is a very Python-like language that was specifically designed for writing Python extension modules.</p> <p>The reason why Cython (or actually its predecessor <a class="reference" href="http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg/python/Pyrex/">Pyrex</a> at the time) was chosen as an implementation language for lxml, is that it makes it very easy to interface with both the Python world and external C code. Cython generates all the necessary glue code for the Python API, including Python types, calling conventions and reference counting. On the other side of the table, calling into C code is not more than declaring the signature of the function and maybe some variables as being C types, pointers or structs, and then calling it. The rest of the code is just plain Python code.</p> <p>The Cython language is so close to Python that the Cython compiler can actually compile many, many Python programs to C without major modifications. But the real speed gains of a C compilation come from type annotations that were added to the language and that allow Cython to generate very efficient C code.</p> <p>Even if you are not familiar with Cython, you should keep in mind that a slow implementation of a feature is better than none. So, if you want to contribute and have an idea what code you want to write, feel free to start with a pure Python implementation. Chances are, if you get the change officially accepted and integrated, others will take the time to optimise it so that it runs fast in Cython.</p> </div> <div class="section"> <h1><a id="where-to-start" name="where-to-start">Where to start?</a></h1> <p>First of all, read <a class="reference" href="build.html">how to build lxml from sources</a> to learn how to retrieve the source code from the Subversion repository and how to build it. The source code lives in the subdirectory <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">src</span></tt> of the checkout.</p> <p>The main extension modules in lxml are <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">lxml.etree</span></tt> and <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">lxml.objectify</span></tt>. All main modules have the file extension <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.pyx</span></tt>, which shows the descendence from Pyrex. As usual in Python, the main files start with a short description and a couple of imports. Cython distinguishes between the run-time <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">import</span></tt> statement (as known from Python) and the compile-time <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">cimport</span></tt> statement, which imports C declarations, either from external libraries or from other Cython modules.</p> <div class="section"> <h2><a id="concepts" name="concepts">Concepts</a></h2> <p>lxml's tree API is based on proxy objects. That means, every Element object (or rather <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">_Element</span></tt> object) is a proxy for a libxml2 node structure. The class declaration is (mainly):</p> <pre class="literal-block"> cdef class _Element: cdef _Document _doc cdef xmlNode* _c_node </pre> <p>It is a naming convention that C variables and C level class members that are passed into libxml2 start with a prefixed <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">c_</span></tt> (commonly libxml2 struct pointers), and that C level class members are prefixed with an underscore. So you will often see names like <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">c_doc</span></tt> for an <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">xmlDoc*</span></tt> variable (or <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">c_node</span></tt> for an <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">xmlNode*</span></tt>), or the above <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">_c_node</span></tt> for a class member that points to an <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">xmlNode</span></tt> struct (or <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">_c_doc</span></tt> for an <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">xmlDoc*</span></tt>).</p> <p>It is important to know that every proxy in lxml has a factory function that properly sets up C level members. Proxy objects must <em>never</em> be instantiated outside of that factory. For example, to instantiate an _Element object or its subclasses, you must always call its factory function:</p> <pre class="literal-block"> cdef xmlNode* c_node cdef _Document doc cdef _Element element ... element = _elementFactory(doc, c_node) </pre> <p>A good place to see how this factory is used are the Element methods <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">getparent()</span></tt>, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">getnext()</span></tt> and <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">getprevious()</span></tt>.</p> </div> <div class="section"> <h2><a id="the-documentation" name="the-documentation">The documentation</a></h2> <p>An important part of lxml is the documentation that lives in the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">doc</span></tt> directory. It describes a large part of the API and comprises a lot of example code in the form of doctests.</p> <p>The documentation is written in the <a class="reference" href="http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html">ReStructured Text</a> format, a very powerful text markup language that looks almost like plain text. It is part of the <a class="reference" href="http://docutils.sourceforge.net/">docutils</a> package.</p> <p>The project web site of <a class="reference" href="http://codespeak.net/lxml">lxml</a> is completely generated from these text documents. Even the side menu is just collected from the table of contents that the ReST processor writes into each HTML page. Obviously, we use lxml for this.</p> <p>The easiest way to generate the HTML pages is by calling:</p> <pre class="literal-block"> make html </pre> <p>This will call the script <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">doc/mkhtml.py</span></tt> to run the ReST processor on the files. After generating an HTML page the script parses it back in to build the side menu, and injects the complete menu into each page at the very end.</p> <p>Running the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">make</span></tt> command will also generate the API documentation if you have <a class="reference" href="http://epydoc.sourceforge.net/">epydoc</a> installed. The epydoc package will import and introspect the extension modules and also introspect and parse the Python modules of lxml. The aggregated information will then be written out into an HTML documentation site.</p> </div> </div> <div class="section"> <h1><a id="lxml-etree" name="lxml-etree">lxml.etree</a></h1> <p>The main module, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">lxml.etree</span></tt>, is in the file <strong>lxml.etree.pyx</strong>. It implements the main functions and types of the ElementTree API, as well as all the factory functions for proxies. It is the best place to start if you want to find out how a specific feature is implemented.</p> <p>At the very end of the file, it contains a series of <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">include</span></tt> statements that merge the rest of the implementation into the generated C code. Yes, you read right: no importing, no source file namespacing, just plain good old include and a huge C code result of more than 100,000 lines that we throw right into the C compiler.</p> <p>The main include files are:</p> <dl class="docutils"> <dt>apihelpers.pxi</dt> <dd>Private C helper functions. Except for the factory functions, most of the little functions that are used all over the place are defined here. This includes things like reading out the text content of a libxml2 tree node, checking input from the API level, creating a new Element node or handling attribute values. If you want to work on the lxml code, you should keep these functions in the back of your head, as they will definitely make your life easier.</dd> <dt>classlookup.pxi</dt> <dd>Element class lookup mechanisms. The main API and engines for those who want to define custom Element classes and inject them into lxml.</dd> <dt>docloader.pxi</dt> <dd>Support for custom document loaders. Base class and registry for custom document resolvers.</dd> <dt>extensions.pxi</dt> <dd>Infrastructure for extension functions in XPath/XSLT, including XPath value conversion and function registration.</dd> <dt>iterparse.pxi</dt> <dd>Incremental XML parsing. An iterator class that builds iterparse events while parsing.</dd> <dt>nsclasses.pxi</dt> <dd>Namespace implementation and registry. The registry and engine for Element classes that use the ElementNamespaceClassLookup scheme.</dd> <dt>parser.pxi</dt> <dd>Parsers for XML and HTML. This is the main parser engine. It's the reason why you can parse a document from various sources in two lines of Python code. It's definitely not the right place to start reading lxml's soure code.</dd> <dt>parsertarget.pxi</dt> <dd>An ElementTree compatible parser target implementation based on the SAX2 interface of libxml2.</dd> <dt>proxy.pxi</dt> <dd>Very low-level functions for memory allocation/deallocation and Element proxy handling. Ignoring this for the beginning will safe your head from exploding.</dd> <dt>public-api.pxi</dt> <dd>The set of C functions that are exported to other extension modules at the C level. For example, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">lxml.objectify</span></tt> makes use of these. See the <cite>C-level API</cite> documentation.</dd> <dt>saxparser.pxi</dt> <dd>SAX-like parser interfaces as known from ElementTree's TreeBuilder.</dd> <dt>serializer.pxi</dt> <dd>XML output functions. Basically everything that creates byte sequences from XML trees.</dd> <dt>xinclude.pxi</dt> <dd>XInclude support.</dd> <dt>xmlerror.pxi</dt> <dd><p class="first">Error log handling. All error messages that libxml2 generates internally walk through the code in this file to end up in lxml's Python level error logs.</p> <p class="last">At the end of the file, you will find a long list of named error codes. It is generated from the libxml2 HTML documentation (using lxml, of course). See the script <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">update-error-constants.py</span></tt> for this.</p> </dd> <dt>xmlid.pxi</dt> <dd>XMLID and IDDict, a dictionary-like way to find Elements by their XML-ID attribute.</dd> <dt>xpath.pxi</dt> <dd>XPath evaluators.</dd> <dt>xslt.pxi</dt> <dd>XSL transformations, including the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">XSLT</span></tt> class, document lookup handling and access control.</dd> </dl> <p>The different schema languages (DTD, RelaxNG, XML Schema and Schematron) are implemented in the following include files:</p> <ul class="simple"> <li>dtd.pxi</li> <li>relaxng.pxi</li> <li>schematron.pxi</li> <li>xmlschema.pxi</li> </ul> </div> <div class="section"> <h1><a id="python-modules" name="python-modules">Python modules</a></h1> <p>The <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">lxml</span></tt> package also contains a number of pure Python modules:</p> <dl class="docutils"> <dt>builder.py</dt> <dd>The E-factory and the ElementBuilder class. These provide a simple interface to XML tree generation.</dd> <dt>cssselect.py</dt> <dd>A CSS selector implementation based on XPath. The main class is called <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">CSSSelector</span></tt>.</dd> <dt>doctestcompare.py</dt> <dd>A relaxed comparison scheme for XML/HTML markup in doctest.</dd> <dt>ElementInclude.py</dt> <dd>XInclude-like document inclusion, compatible with ElementTree.</dd> <dt>_elementpath.py</dt> <dd>XPath-like path language, compatible with ElementTree.</dd> <dt>sax.py</dt> <dd>SAX2 compatible interfaces to copy lxml trees from/to SAX compatible tools.</dd> <dt>usedoctest.py</dt> <dd>Wrapper module for <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">doctestcompare.py</span></tt> that simplifies its usage from inside a doctest.</dd> </dl> </div> <div class="section"> <h1><a id="lxml-objectify" name="lxml-objectify">lxml.objectify</a></h1> <p>A Cython implemented extension module that uses the public C-API of lxml.etree. It provides a Python object-like interface to XML trees.</p> </div> <div class="section"> <h1><a id="lxml-pyclasslookup" name="lxml-pyclasslookup">lxml.pyclasslookup</a></h1> <p>A Cython implemented extension module that uses the public C-API of lxml.etree. It provides a class lookup scheme that duplicates lxml's ElementTree API in a very simple way to provide Python access to the tree <em>before</em> instantiating the real Python proxies in lxml.etree.</p> </div> <div class="section"> <h1><a id="lxml-html" name="lxml-html">lxml.html</a></h1> <p>A specialised toolkit for HTML handling, based on lxml.etree. This is implemented in pure Python.</p> </div> </div> <div class="footer"> <hr class="footer" /> Generated on: 2008-12-12. </div> </body> </html>